failed lookup - need to close?

[Nancy Palmquist]

Larry Dannenberg wrote:
> In lines 4 and 8 below, if the lookup fails, the file is closed. A 
> colleague I work with mentioned that it is not necessary to "close" the 
> file if the lookup fails because the file was never opened.
> 
>  
> 
> Is it good programming technique to directly "close" the file or is it 
> an unnecessary step?

If the use of a handle is of importance to the function, then close it 
if you are going to use it.

In the case where resources are tight and you check for data and none 
exists and none will be created in that file, you might do a close just 
to allow that handle to be used for another file.

In most cases, this is not necessary, but I have some few routines where 
only occasionally does the record access the file and if it is not used, 
I close it to allow other lookups to use the handle.  I have found 
success with Windows system that do a lot of lookups in one process 
table.  Resources may cause the process to crash if you exceed the stuff 
with a lot of unused lookups.  Speed is sacrificed but machines are so 
fast that is hardly an issue if the alternative is that the process crashes.

If you will access the file with a lookup r=free anyway on every record, 
close is a waste of time.

Nancy

-- 
Nancy Palmquist 		MOS & filePro Training Available
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