filePro / environment variables / putenv

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kenneth Brody" <kenbrody at bestweb.net>
To: "filePro mailing list" <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 11:36 AM
Subject: filePro / environment variables / putenv


> Let me clarify something about filePro's use of environment/config 
> variables
> and the PUTENV statement.
>
> When filePro starts, it reads the config file once.  If someone were to 
> edit
> the file afterwards, any running filePro program will not see any of those
> changes.
>
> For most variables, filePro reads its value only once, the first time it
> needs to use it.  If you use PUTENV to set/change the value of a variable
> prior to filePro's first look at it, filePro will see the new value.
>
> For example, TEXTNORMAL is needed immediately upon startup, so using 
> PUTENV
> to change it will have no effect on the current program.  (It will, of
> course, affect anything run via SYSTEM.)
>
> However, PFONEHEAD is not needed until filePro needs to print a page 
> header.
> Therefore, using PUTENV to change its value prior to anything being 
> printed,
> such as in @ONCE or while processing the very first output record, will 
> have
> the desired effect.
>
> I happen to use a similar setting myself.  I have an import process that
> needs to import a text file with very long lines.  In my @ONCE event, I 
> have
> a PUTENV "PFIMPBUF","32000" to ensure that PFIMPBUF is set, regardless of
> any config file setting.

Noooow I get it.
This clears it up for me and is also rule of thumb that I can follow to 
always know what to expect.
Thank you.

Brian K. White  --  brian at aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
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