Dim arrays & mapping fields

[Walter Vaughan]

Butch Ammon wrote:
> Long story short and main question:  Does a DIM array absolutely have to be in 
> sequential order when mapping fields?

A single array? Yes. That's what it is by definition AFAIK.

Can you fix the problem? Very To Extremely Difficult.

What you would need is a perl script that will open up all your 
processing tables and replace any instance of numeric fields with the 
field names.

Where you get screwed is reports. Bah. Perhaps there could be a script 
writtten that would replace field placement on a report.

Then you need to create a new file that has the fields in the order you 
want with the same field names as the original. And if you want to keep 
all the system maintained fields you'll need to use alias filePro files 
built on each's key segment that will allow you to read and write as 
needed the 20 byte record header.

As a difficulty I'd rate it as 9 stars out of 10. Doable, but very labor 
intensive.

What would be a *MUCH* better long term solution, it to normalize the 
data, and use a header/detail structure.

What you are doing is trying to fake a header detail structure, why not 
just do it for real.

Still labor intensive, but if three years from now you need to have 20 
more material fields who cares? Let'em have a thousand material fields.

Reporting on what uses what type of material will be much easier as well.

I'd rate moving to header/detail as 3.5 out of 10 in difficulty.

--
Walter