just an update

[John Esak]

Rick,

Don't know if you remember but we were trying to find out if some file had
size for the EDI  batch thing a couple months ago?  I kept saying there was
something like fstat() to do this.  I had read about it and catalogued it
away for future use sometime. You remember we looked for it for a while in
the Help, and then gave up. Finally, we concocted something else... like an
open() file and then filesize() I think.

On the list, Ken just mentioned... why didn't I use fstat(), so I looked
again and it wasn't there AGAIN! I was just about to go crazy when I had a
thought... maybe he said @fstat?  I looked and there was the thing I
remembered reading about. It gives you *everything* you could ever want to
know about the last successful EXISTS() command.

It's knowing where to look that counts, huh?

Again, this is why I wrote the first online manual with a listing of
commands by *functionality* that was *not* alphabetical. In other words
under SCREEN functions, you would find DISPLAY, MESGBOX, SHOW, SCREEN, etc.
Any other way to do this is not as useful. Sure have an alphabetical listing
somewhere... but it won't be used 1% as much as a by-function listing. The
EXISTS() description would have a "See @fstat" and the @fstat stuff right
there as well, where it should be.

I'm mean, seriously, everyone, anyone who's listening... Why, *how* would
anyone new or old to FP think to look through a listing of @arrays to find
something which works only with EXISTS()?  Why, how would anyone new or old
find the MESGBOX function if that was what they needed? All they would know
is they want a function that puts something on the screen, and asks for user
input. What would lead them to the letter "M"? I looked for my original
by-function listing of all filePro functions in the latest on-line manual,
and it wasn't there. (Maybe I missed it.)  Why in the world would this be
taken out?  I mean I had it grouped so nicely by Screen Functions, Output
Functions, Trigger Functions, Math Functions, File functions, String
Functions, etc., etc. Any programmer or any plain user could quickly find
all the filePro functions that pertained to the area needed. We all think in
terms of these areas... none of us could possibly think alphabetically about
what it is we want :-)  All we know is, we want to do something on the
screen, or print something, or etc. By using areas of functionality and
grouping all the filePro processing table functions and commands that way, I
thought I had achieved something really good. Nearly ever one of the filePro
Bible people let me know it was fantastic. If it is not in there, and I
didn't just "miss" it, please, could it come back? What say everyone else?

John Esak
Visit The FP Room www.tinyurl.com/97y9u

Author of:
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John

cc: fplist