filePro data entry failing on restored 5.6.10D4 Linux server - SOLVED!!!

[Mike Schwartz]

> On 1/29/2016 12:03 PM, Mike Schwartz wrote:
> [...]
> >   [mjs] scoansi # cat reindex echo "Started `date`"
> > /home/mjs/retime cd /u/appl/filepro for file in *
> >        do echo $file
> >        cd $file
> >           /u/appl/fp/lib/freechain $file
> 
> Why not replace all of this;
> 
> >        for indx in `ls index.[A-H] 2>/home/mjs/retime`
> >            do echo $file $indx
> >            echo $file $indx `date` >>/home/mjs/retime
> >            i=`echo $indx | sed s,index.,,`
> >            echo $file $index $i
> >            /u/appl/fp/dxmaint $file -o$i -r -a -e
> >           sleep 2
> >        done
> 
> with:
> 
>      echo $file `date` >>/home/mjs/retime
>      /u/appl/fp/dxmaint $file -ra -e
> 
> (And what's the purpose of the "sleep 2" aside from slowing down the
> rebuild?)
> 
> >        cd ..
> >   done
> >   echo "Ended `date`" >>/home/mjs/retime
> [...]
> 
> --
> Kenneth Brody

     HEY!  I wasn't a very good Unix script writer; just getting started in the 80's!  I was quite proud that I got this to work!    :<))

     With only my IBM mainframe background, I was extra proud when I figured out "cron" and was able to get this to run every night.  

     This script was vital when automatic indexes had to be rebuilt every night so that they didn't "overload" from having too many new numbers added on one end of the index, such as when new incremental invoice numbers were added to the end of an index by invoice number.  (That's probably before you were born...)
  
     The "sleep 2" used to cause the display to pause for 2 seconds so that I could catch the name of the index that was being rebuilt, just so I could estimate how much time was left when I was running this manually.  At American Can, when the Tandy 16 would go down, we always rebuilt the indexes before we let the users get back in.  The old 8 MEG drives would "chirp" for about an hour to rebuild the indexes.  with users stopping by my desk constantly at American can, asking me when the system would be back up.  Yes, the drives made a very distinctive chirping sound.  I told them, "You can go back in when the chirping sound stops!")

     Since then, I haven't looked at this script much.  This script is on a couple of dozen filePro systems I've worked on.  I recall expanding the A-H to allow for more indexes for a few of my customers,  and then added the logging to the retime file at a couple of sites.  

     I realize I could have rewritten this with the -RA option.  It was just an "if not broke don't fix" issue, but I guess this WAS broken and I will be reviewing it at all my old customers!

Mike