Interesting lookup processing

[John Esak]

Mike,
I have been doing this code since the first day I ever programmed in
filePro... Don't you do this....

Lookup npio=npio ... ...
Not npio
Lookup npio=npioarchive ... ...
...
...

Why would you think this wouldn't work. The first lookup fails, it is not
active, period.  So the next lookup is done.... Etc.

Incidentally, I'm not kidding about using this since the first time lookup
was ever release with the r=free option.  Like this...

Lookup there=file  k=25 i=N -nx
Not there
Lookup there=file r=free
There(2)=this and that... Etc.

If a rcord isn't there already... Make one and keep the processing after
that the same.  In other words if the record exists, update it, if it isn't,
create it first and then hpdate it as if it was there... :-)   With the
incedibly complex code you've worked on in your career 'm really surprised
you never saw this ubiquitous construction.

John

P.S. By the way, I'm not saying I thought this construction up... It was
just always there... I's probably a Ken or a Dave or even a Howie....
Rmember, I had the luxury, honor, luck to be working at the company where we
were thinking up this filePro program day by day from scratch.  Nancy
Palmquist, myself and a couple others joined when Ken, Dave, Howie, and
Barry Wiseman were making do when lookup could not actually change the
fields in a looked up file.  In fact when Dave Roeger wrote that code ... So
that lookup could actually "post" to aa looked up file... He decided to call
it "dreport" in stead of "report"... Then all the "d" tools happened in
pretty quick cuccession.  This was a time, when one could literally walk
into the programmers room (at say 2pm) where Ken, Dave and another one or
two guys would just put something you needed into the code on the spot.
"Hey, I need it to do this..."  They would think for a second and then say,
oh, good idea, but how about if it worked this way... You would usually end
up saying.. "Oh, that's even better!"  The 4pm version of the program would
have it in there. Two days later, it would have 5 options and be documented.
1984 ws not only an amazing book only titled only 30 years too early... It
was an absolutely amazing time to be working in the personal computer
industry at its dawn... When Macintosh wasn't even a gleam... When IBM was
the only way to go.. And they were making mistakes like buying operating
system licenses from Microsoft instead of just buying the company outright.
Within the next decade, Microsoft actually became *bigger* than IBM... And
on and on.... 


Of course, it was all started at AT&T and even more so at Xeroc PARC.  Like
I have said over and over again here. It's a little earlier by 10 years, but
get a hold of the book "Dealers In Lighting"... You will not be able to put
it down, and you will be flabberghasted as to how the things you use ever
minute of your life were invented.

John


> -----Original Message-----
> From: filepro-list-bounces+john=valar.com at lists.celestial.com 
> [mailto:filepro-list-bounces+john=valar.com at lists.celestial.co
m] On Behalf Of Mike Schwartz
> Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 10:49 PM
> To: 'filePro Mailing List'
> Subject: Interesting lookup processing
> 
>      I was looking at some programs written by another 
> programmer over 10
> years ago, and ran into this code that I didn't think would 
> work reliably,
> but it has for over 10 years now:
> 
> -----
> :
> lookup INVEN K=2 (blah, blah)
> -----
> Not INVEN
> Lookup INVEN = ARCINVEN k=2 (blah, blah)
> -----
> :
> 3=INVEN(4)
> -----
> 
> 
>      I would have bet, internally, that filePro would get 
> confused by the
> "dual" use of the word INVEN, especially if one part was 
> found in the active
> inventory file and the next part was found in the archive 
> inventory file.
> 
>      Is this something that potentially could be causing 
> problems, or is
> this perfectly legitimate code?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Mike Schwartz
> 
>   
> 
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