Non-filepro files

[Nancy Palmquist]

Fellow FilePro experts,

I have a non-filepro file that is used to collect changed records and only 
writes free records,  each night the file is reset and starts collecting changes 
for the next day.

I am wondering how the filePro locking is managed for a non-filepro kind of file.

lookup file r=free -n
or to lock a free record do you have to add the -p

lookup file r=free -np

Two processes are writing records to this file and I think I noticed that a 
record here and there are missing, seemingly written over by another process.

Both the processes were using -n without the -p for locking.  I always 
understood that r=free was automatically locking, but now I wonder if 
non-filepro Files are different somehow.

I noticed that in other cases where I have not noticed any lost records, I was 
using -np  on the lookup FREE.

Many, many records are written to this file from many processes.  I am concerned 
I am really missing more data than I am noticing.

(This is data that is not lost it just slows down the cycle when it is not 
written to this temporary change file.  I want to get all the new data and post 
it to the web as it is received. Each night the entire file is refreshed, but 
this gets the data added all day so it is not 24 hours old.)

I am expecting a record for each order processed and noticed I miss a few 
everyday, that did all the other things it should have but there is not a record 
in this file.  Nothing crashed, nothing is broken, it just looks like a record 
was written over the record by another process.

Any thoughts would be useful.

Someone is going to ask me what OS is writing this file and here is the answer, 
both Linux and Windows write records into this file.  That is why I used 
NON-filepro format.  There are no indexes.  The data part of the file is in a 
folder that is shared by both systems.  It works great as a way to pass data 
between the systems.  The only reason I noticed is that I run a process on this 
one shared file that marks off orders to indicate they were processed on the 
other platform.  I noticed a few are not marked off and wondered why.


Nancy
-- 
Nancy Palmquist 		MOS & filePro Training Available
Virtual Software Systems	Web Based Training and Consulting	
PHONE: (412) 835-9417		   Web site:  http://www.vss3.com