Question about Multi-Field Indexes

[Kenneth Brody]

On 9/1/2010 10:36 AM, John Esak wrote:
> Yes, the line length of cabe is bothersome. Some get around it with vi, I
> don't do that.
>
> However... You don't have agonize over if-conditions that are too long.
>
>     If: very long condition
>   then:  blah, blah
>
> Can be easily turned into
>
> Line_1 if: half of the condition
>    t   hen:
> Line_2 if: the other half of the condition
>       then:
>         if: line_1 and line_2
>       then: blah, blah
[...]

You can also refer to a selection set as part of the condition:

     if:  selection_set_name and state = "NY"
   then:  blah, blah, blah

You can also use labels for a series of conditions that are almost identical 
(I've seen code like this, going on for dozens of lines):

     if:  (this and that and foo="1") and (something or other or bar="a")
   then:  ...
     if:  (this and that and foo="2") and (something or other or bar="b")
   then:  ...
     if:  (this and that and foo="3") and (something or other or bar="c")
   then:  ...

can be simplified to:

part1
     if:  this and that
   then:
part2
     if:  something or other
   then:
     if:  (part1 and foo="1") and (part2 or bar="a")
   then:  ...
     if:  (part1 and foo="2") and (part2 or bar="b")
   then:  ...
     if:  (part1 and foo="3") and (part2 or bar="c")
   then:  ...

In addition to not requiring filePro to re-evaluate the "this and that" and 
"something or other" conditions each time, it also eliminates the 
possibility of one of the lines having a typo in that part.  (You can, of 
course, have a typo in the single instance.  But hopefully you would catch 
that a lot easier than one line in possibly dozens.)

-- 
Kenneth Brody