Writing to Real Fields in Automatic Processing Tables

[Bob Stockler]

Bob Stockler wrote (on Wed, Apr 11, 2007 at 05:57:40PM -0400):

| Ken Brody wrote (on Wed, Apr 11, 2007 at 05:16:17PM -0400):
| 
| | Note that the only reason this is allowed by filePro is that the
| | original versions of filePro didn't disallow it, and too many
| | people wrote (broken) code that depends on this (broken) ability.
| | Disallowing it would "break" the (already broken, but "working")
| | code that depends on this.
| 
| Many years ago, in a land far away, there was a filePro presence
| on CompuServe, and on that forum . . .
| 
|   It took many of us (some still on *this* list) quite a bit of time
|   to convince another subscriber to this list (George Simon) that it
|   wasn't "right" to "write" to REAL fields in Automatic Processing
|   Tables.
| 
| Anyone on this list (including George) is encouraged to confirm or
| deny/correct my (admittedly decreasing as age increases) memories.
| 
| Bob
| 
| PS - The only time I wrote to a REAL field in Automatic Processing
|      was in a work-around situation where I was using Bob Snapp's
|      "Address Matching - Address Correction" software.  filePro's
|      limits of the number lines in a processing table at the time
|      prevented me from putting all of Snapp's code in the input
|      table, so I put it in the automatic table, accesed it there,
|      and went back to the input table.  That code in the automatic
|      table was never reached unless it was accessed via the input
|      table that required it.

It just occurred to me that I had invented a CALL, or CHAIN,
table before I knew what those might be.

  [trebor] ~u/appl/filepro/custfile: l prc.*_ams
  -rw-------    1 filepro  group    56138 Nov  9  1993 prc.auto_ams
  -rw-------    1 filepro  group    43887 Nov  9  1993 prc.input_ams
  [trebor] ~u/appl/filepro/custfile: wc -l prc.*_ams
     1175 prc.auto_ams
     1068 prc.input_ams

I don't recall exactly what version of filePro I was using at
the time, but I think it was v1.2 for Tandy Xenix (and the
filePro programs were in "/appl/pf").

Bob

-- 
Bob Stockler +-+ bob at trebor.iglou.com +-+ http://members.iglou.com/trebor