Alpha Software Mobile Development Tools:   Alpha Anywhere    |   Alpha TransForm subscribe to our YouTube Channel  Follow Us on LinkedIn  Follow Us on Twitter  Follow Us on Facebook

Announcement

Collapse

The Alpha Software Forum Participation Guidelines

The Alpha Software Forum is a free forum created for Alpha Software Developer Community to ask for help, exchange ideas, and share solutions. Alpha Software strives to create an environment where all members of the community can feel safe to participate. In order to ensure the Alpha Software Forum is a place where all feel welcome, forum participants are expected to behave as follows:
  • Be professional in your conduct
  • Be kind to others
  • Be constructive when giving feedback
  • Be open to new ideas and suggestions
  • Stay on topic


Be sure all comments and threads you post are respectful. Posts that contain any of the following content will be considered a violation of your agreement as a member of the Alpha Software Forum Community and will be moderated:
  • Spam.
  • Vulgar language.
  • Quotes from private conversations without permission, including pricing and other sales related discussions.
  • Personal attacks, insults, or subtle put-downs.
  • Harassment, bullying, threatening, mocking, shaming, or deriding anyone.
  • Sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, or otherwise discriminatory jokes and language.
  • Sexually explicit or violent material, links, or language.
  • Pirated, hacked, or copyright-infringing material.
  • Encouraging of others to engage in the above behaviors.


If a thread or post is found to contain any of the content outlined above, a moderator may choose to take one of the following actions:
  • Remove the Post or Thread - the content is removed from the forum.
  • Place the User in Moderation - all posts and new threads must be approved by a moderator before they are posted.
  • Temporarily Ban the User - user is banned from forum for a period of time.
  • Permanently Ban the User - user is permanently banned from the forum.


Moderators may also rename posts and threads if they are too generic or do not property reflect the content.

Moderators may move threads if they have been posted in the incorrect forum.

Threads/Posts questioning specific moderator decisions or actions (such as "why was a user banned?") are not allowed and will be removed.

The owners of Alpha Software Corporation (Forum Owner) reserve the right to remove, edit, move, or close any thread for any reason; or ban any forum member without notice, reason, or explanation.

Community members are encouraged to click the "Report Post" icon in the lower left of a given post if they feel the post is in violation of the rules. This will alert the Moderators to take a look.

Alpha Software Corporation may amend the guidelines from time to time and may also vary the procedures it sets out where appropriate in a particular case. Your agreement to comply with the guidelines will be deemed agreement to any changes to it.



Bonus TIPS for Successful Posting

Try a Search First
It is highly recommended that a Search be done on your topic before posting, as many questions have been answered in prior posts. As with any search engine, the shorter the search term, the more "hits" will be returned, but the more specific the search term is, the greater the relevance of those "hits". Searching for "table" might well return every message on the board while "tablesum" would greatly restrict the number of messages returned.

When you do post
First, make sure you are posting your question in the correct forum. For example, if you post an issue regarding Desktop applications on the Mobile & Browser Applications board , not only will your question not be seen by the appropriate audience, it may also be removed or relocated.

The more detail you provide about your problem or question, the more likely someone is to understand your request and be able to help. A sample database with a minimum of records (and its support files, zipped together) will make it much easier to diagnose issues with your application. Screen shots of error messages are especially helpful.

When explaining how to reproduce your problem, please be as detailed as possible. Describe every step, click-by-click and keypress-by-keypress. Otherwise when others try to duplicate your problem, they may do something slightly different and end up with different results.

A note about attachments
You may only attach one file to each message. Attachment file size is limited to 2MB. If you need to include several files, you may do so by zipping them into a single archive.

If you forgot to attach your files to your post, please do NOT create a new thread. Instead, reply to your original message and attach the file there.

When attaching screen shots, it is best to attach an image file (.BMP, .JPG, .GIF, .PNG, etc.) or a zip file of several images, as opposed to a Word document containing the screen shots. Because Word documents are prone to viruses, many message board users will not open your Word file, therefore limiting their ability to help you.

Similarly, if you are uploading a zipped archive, you should simply create a .ZIP file and not a self-extracting .EXE as many users will not run your EXE file.
See more
See less

Syntax Question with Long Filter

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Syntax Question with Long Filter

    I have a report that I need to run, but I would like to first check if there will be any records first and would rather display a message than a blank sheet.

    The filter I have for my report is:
    (Res_Detail->rdate <= ctod("date()") .and. (Res_Detail->fuel_status = "requested" .or.Res_Detail->Water_Status="requested" .or. Res_Detail->Lav_Status="requested" .OR. Res_Detail->Other_Status="requested" .OR. Res_Detail->Oil_Status="requested" .OR. Res_Detail->Hangar_Status="requested")) .OR.Res_Detail->Catering_Status="requested"
    .OR.Res_Detail->Dishes_Status="requested".OR.Res_Detail->Cleaners_Status="requested".OR.Res_Detail->O2_Status="requested".OR.Res_Detail->Hotel_Status="requested".OR.Rcardetail->Status="requested"
    I was trying to use A5_GET_RECORDS_IN_QUERY() but how do I use the filter in this expression? It seems to need quotes around it, but it has so may quotes in it already. I tried s_quote a bit but I am sure someone can set me straight quickly, thanks a bunch.

    #2
    Re: Syntax Question with Long Filter

    You are correct that it needs quotes around the expression. Once you put quotes around it then any internal quotes must be escaped with a backslash. Additionally, any variables must be substituted/concatenated into the string.

    Looks like you want

    (Res_Detail->rdate <= ctod(\"date()\") .and. (Res_Detail->fuel_status = \"requested\" .or.Res_Detail->Water_Status=\"requested\" .or. Res_Detail->Lav_Status=\"requested\" .OR. Res_Detail->Other_Status=\"requested\" .OR. Res_Detail->Oil_Status=\"requested\" .OR. Res_Detail->Hangar_Status=\"requested\")) .OR.Res_Detail->Catering_Status=\"requested\"
    .OR.Res_Detail->Dishes_Status=\"requested\".OR.Res_Detail->Cleaners_Status=\"requested\".OR.Res_Detail->O2_Status=\"requested\".OR.Res_Detail->Hotel_Status=\"requested\".OR.Rcardetail->Status=\"requested\)"
    http://wiki.alphasoftware.com/~alpha...ng+Expressions

    http://wiki.alphasoftware.com/~alpha...ex+Expressions

    http://wiki.alphasoftware.com/~alpha...ASHES+Function
    Last edited by Stan Mathews; 09-24-2013, 10:25 PM.
    There can be only one.

    Comment


      #3
      Re: Syntax Question with Long Filter

      Let me try this. The whole filter is supposed to be surrounded by quotes for the function. Is this just quotes or some variation? These always confuse me. Thanks Stan.

      Comment


        #4
        Re: Syntax Question with Long Filter

        Take any filter you can construct in the expression builder, say for a report or query by expression.
        To use that in a function such as a5_get_records_in_query() you have to quote the filter.
        When you quote the filter, if the filter itself contains quotes, Alpha thinks the filter now stops at the second quote.
        Example report filter
        state= "MA"
        Example function filter
        "state= "MA""
        Without the proper modification Alpha thinks you are trying to filter "state= ", Alpha doesn't know what the trailing MA"" is meant to do.
        Example with backslashes
        "state= \"MA\""
        Alpha interprets the backslashes to mean
        "Keep on until I hit a quote mark without a backslash"


        To tell Alpha that the internal quotes should not be interpreted as the end of the filter you must use the backslash character immediately before each internal quote.

        Consider the sentence (a filter is just a sentence).

        "John is an Alpha "developer""

        You could figure out what the writer meant. Alpha is more limited.
        Last edited by Stan Mathews; 09-25-2013, 10:55 AM.
        There can be only one.

        Comment


          #5
          Re: Syntax Question with Long Filter

          It still may be incorrect, unless I'm reading it wrong.

          Code:
          Res_Detail->rdate <=ctod("date()")
          Date() is a true Date-type field, and CTOD("date()") would not work.

          if Res_Detail->rdate is actually a date-type field, then it should read

          Code:
          Res_Detail->rdate <=date()
          Tom

          Comment


            #6
            Re: Syntax Question with Long Filter

            Good catch, Tom. I suppose I should have said.

            Take any filter you can construct in the expression builder, say for a report or query by expression, that works.
            There can be only one.

            Comment


              #7
              Re: Syntax Question with Long Filter

              Very funny, thanks to you both. Appreciate the lesson Stan. I get the \ method and how it works, your explanation was very clear. There seems to be so many ways to do this and when the s_quote and quote functions were introduced, it just added more confusion to my limited mind. Thanks again.

              Comment


                #8
                Re: Syntax Question with Long Filter

                S_quote() and quote are useful when substituting/concatenating variables into a filter. Not so much with static values.
                There can be only one.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: Syntax Question with Long Filter

                  Maybe I'm just old school, but it helps to keep my head straight (somewhat).

                  When I use variables in a filter string, I use the [varC->varname] and the replace_parameters() function.

                  Code:
                  Dim vartest as C = "abcd1234"
                  
                  filt = replace_parameters("Keyval = [varC->vartest]",local_variables())
                  ?filt
                  = Keyval = "abcd1234"
                  then I would do a "Query.filter = filt"

                  for whatever reason, I feel more comfortable with this as I haven't had issues since I've been using it.

                  Tom

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: Syntax Question with Long Filter

                    Never even heard of that one, interesting...

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Re: Syntax Question with Long Filter

                      Then you might also be interested in

                      REPLACE_VARIABLES_IN_STRING()
                      There can be only one.

                      Comment

                      Working...
                      X