FIle restructure bastardization

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Don Coleman" <dcoleman at dgcreact.com>
To: "filePro List" <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 12:18 PM
Subject: FIle restructure bastardization


>I have a fP file with 16 qualifiers and a total for 51M records spread 
>across the qualifiers.  This business functions 24/7 and it presents quite 
>a disruption to have them down for any period of time.  Within this file 
>are two YESNO flag fields which are always either "Y" or left blank. 
>Rather than attempt to restructure this file which will take hours (Windows 
>network) can I copy a modified map file (with everyone out of the system) 
>changing the edit on these two fields from YESNO to either * or ALLUP? 
>Will the new map preserve the fields containing the "Y" data?  I do realize 
>that this is not the preferred method of restructuring a file but you can 
>see where I am going.  Doing so will allow me to use various codes in those 
>fields instead of the limitation of Y,N, blank and not force me to add 
>additional fields.

I see no problem other than a _possible_ need to rebuild any indexes 
including that field because the new edit may sort differently, even though 
at first all the data is still exactly the same.
I've hand-doctored maps a couple times without a problem but don't remember 
if I've done exactly this.
I'm curious too.

You could copy the file (the directory) first at the OS level easy enough 
and just put it back.

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