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

"Operation is improperly defined"

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

    "Operation is improperly defined"


    I exported a browse from a set, so I could import the information into a new database. After the import analyzes the file, the import specifications look good, but I get the message "Operation is improperly defined" when I try to save or run the import.

    I did searches on the version 5 message board and looked at several messages regarding import. I found no reference to this particular error message. Is anyone familiar with it?

    Thanks for taking time to think about this one. I realize you may need data to replicate the condition.

    #2
    RE:

    what do you mean when you say you "exported a browse from a set".

    Comment


      #3
      RE:

      Can you post the example?
      Al Buchholz
      Bookwood Systems, LTD
      Weekly QReportBuilder Webinars Thursday 1 pm CST

      Occam's Razor - KISS
      Normalize till it hurts - De-normalize till it works.
      Advice offered and questions asked in the spirit of learning how to fish is better than someone giving you a fish.
      When we triage a problem it is much easier to read sample systems than to read a mind.
      "Make it as simple as possible, but not simpler."
      Albert Einstein

      http://www.iadn.com/images/media/iadn_member.png

      Comment


        #4
        RE:

        I was in a browse view of a set, with a master table with over 1,000,000 subscription records and linked by publication field to a child table's publication field. The child table had up to 37 records (for 37 possible issues) for each publication. I wanted to handle each of the 37 as a separate record. Using a one-to-many link, I had the appearance in the browse view that did that. I wanted to export that configuration and read it into a new file.

        So I pulled down a menu. (I'm away from Alpha Five, and I cannot remember which menu I pulled down.) I saw an "Export" option and selected it. It popped up a screen to configure the export. I selected a character-separated file.

        (It also noted that if I expected to be doing this repeatedly, I might want to make an Export Operation. Since I thought this was going to be a large export, I thought I might never do it again.)

        The export ran from several hours, and said it had exported over 16,000,000 records.

        I had a large .asc file (4 gigabytes). But I thought I had the exact configuration, so that if I linked it in a new set to the master file of the previous set, I could generate the exact information I needed, even if processes would take a while to run.

        So I took a deep breath and opened an Import screen. When I selected "Suggest Structure", the process again ran for several hours. But I thought, if this gives me what I need, it will be worth it.

        It finished, with a suggested structure that looked good. I could neither save nor run the Import, but when I reviewed the field types and column widths, they each seemed accurate.

        Still, I would get the message "Operation is improperly defined."

        I tried deleting fields, in case one of them had a problem. When I was left with about four fields, it would save, but give the same error message when I tried to run the import.

        Second export: So I tried another character-delimited Export, selecting just a fraction of the records. It ran for over an hour, exporting over 800,000 records. Again, when I tried to import the .asc file, it analyzed for over an hour, and suggested fields that had the correct field names and appropriate field type and width, so far as I could tell. When I tried to save, it gave the same message. When I tried to run the import, it gave the same message. I deleted all but one field, still the message came when I tried to save or run. I deleted the field. Then it would say a message like "no fields defined" or something like that. It made me think there was some in the selections above the field descriptions. But I could not see how changing the type file input would help, because it was a character-delimited input file. The input file name had to be the name it was. I tried to change the output file name, but the import would still give the same message: "Operation is improperly defined."

        Perhaps I need to export only 100 records or so, which would not take long. Then I can try multiple exports and/or imports without tieing up so much time. Then I can report the result tomorrow.

        Comment


          #5
          RE:

          I have never posted the example. Do I do this with screen prints, or do I send a sample .asc file for others to try to import?

          Thanks for your time.

          Comment


            #6
            RE:

            Backup Backup Backup - first

            Probably best to use the zip database function in Alpha.

            From the control panel - tools - zip database

            Take that file and attach it to a message. You are limited to 1 mb. If it's greater than that you'll need to try a database compact first, otherwise delete some data and compact again.
            Al Buchholz
            Bookwood Systems, LTD
            Weekly QReportBuilder Webinars Thursday 1 pm CST

            Occam's Razor - KISS
            Normalize till it hurts - De-normalize till it works.
            Advice offered and questions asked in the spirit of learning how to fish is better than someone giving you a fish.
            When we triage a problem it is much easier to read sample systems than to read a mind.
            "Make it as simple as possible, but not simpler."
            Albert Einstein

            http://www.iadn.com/images/media/iadn_member.png

            Comment


              #7
              RE:

              A good idea in the previous post of yours. Do all of this with 100 records and then work on the large file after the small one works.
              Al Buchholz
              Bookwood Systems, LTD
              Weekly QReportBuilder Webinars Thursday 1 pm CST

              Occam's Razor - KISS
              Normalize till it hurts - De-normalize till it works.
              Advice offered and questions asked in the spirit of learning how to fish is better than someone giving you a fish.
              When we triage a problem it is much easier to read sample systems than to read a mind.
              "Make it as simple as possible, but not simpler."
              Albert Einstein

              http://www.iadn.com/images/media/iadn_member.png

              Comment

              Working...
              X