Field to field comparison

[Mike Wilson]

Re: Field to field comparison

Scott,
First, sorry for stealing your thread, but I can't pass up a good debate.

Usually no filter at all except for very specific situations (have read that filtered indices can corrupt more easily--not proven IMO).

Give me knowledge of filters or indexes... filters win hands, feet, nose, ears, hair...whatever...down. You must know filters to work with Alpha. You can get by without indexes. I steer as clear as I can of indexes unless needed (exist() is one of the few I use when there are many records). Why...because... another item to build, another name to remember, and as your above quote tells.... they can become corrupted, and another headache. Filters never have curruption issues unless the data is currupted. And for multi-parameter/field needs an index is not useable. So unless the number of table records is large, and the speed to discover a field value is critical.... Right or wrong, I will always use the reliability and constancy of a filter over an index. I then don't have to build an index, remember an index name (which would be a good wishlist item to put index list under Menu > Code > 'Indexes'), or worry about index corruption/maintenance.

OK, now it's time for me to have.... enough said. :D

[Tom Cone Jr]

Re: Field to field comparison

Mike_W - for what it's worth, I prefer to use indexes wherever feasible. Working with a previously sorted table is almost always faster than opening an unsorted table and then sorting it to fetch or find desired records. This is why Alpha uses LQO when an appropriate index is available. -- tom

[MikeC]

Re: Field to field comparison

Mike,

Actually not much of a debate here at all!
I agree that filtering syntax is something that should be of the highest priority for someone using Alpha (or any development tool) to learn---and initially it is not an easy task, but once learned, everything seems to just fall into place much more rapidly. I would say that a large part of the questions on the message board are related to syntactical problems, especially when trying to create a filter.

Compared to understanding filtering syntax the learning curve of what an index is, what it does, and how to use them is very, very small (but important to fully utilize the power of Alpha).

Also, even if a developer such as yourself does not create or directly use indices, they are still created by Alpha when necessary many times that are used for situations that a developer causes whether it is known or not.....and these are just as corruptible as ones created directly....so IMO this should not even be considered as to whether a developer should use indices as they are present regardless--a table "without" an index showing will have the invisible, "__A5_Record" index with the order of RecNo(). Only truncated "__A5_Record" indexes visibly show up usually as "__A5_Recor" (10 characters).

'=================================
Scott, we are all waiting to hear back as to which method you feel most comfortable with....in the meantime, obviously, we tend to discuss things that hopefully are at least a bit related to the thread topic! :)

[draxx]

Re: Field to field comparison

Thanks so much for all the help guys. Well.... I tried modding my code as "Mile C." suggested by adding the comma within my ui message box, but still nothing happens. I debugged the code and took it line by line. It appears to work but then just ends without displaying the message box. The address I'm checking was copied into the "Nonserve Addresses" table so I know it's there, and I'm on the record in "ameregl3" table that has the address in the field.

Then I tried Mike W.'s code. Again the same thing... nothing happens. It's got to be something I'm doing but I'm not quite sure what. Although I've been developing this app for our company for over 10 years and changing things as needed I am definitely not the ultimate programmer. I know enough to be dangerous but am far from proficient. Again guys, thanks for all your help. Let me know if you figure something out. Maybe it's a Version 5 problem, not sure. I'm going to go ahead and create 2 new tables in a copy of the database and try it on them to see if it's my tables or something else.

And just for the record, I usually prefer filters to indexes, but it's just my opinion and it's great to see how many diffrent ways there are to accomplish the same task.

Thanks Guys,

Scott

[Mike Wilson]

Re: Field to field comparison

Scott,
Try one more thing. When things aren't working for me and it involves a variable, I now always check/try two things. 1-make sure if the variable is character... alltrim(). 2- if it is a filter with an = expression and it should be working but not, I try 'contains'. So, try

DIM tbl3 as p
dim vadd as C
dim vfilter as C
tbl3=table.get("ameregl3")     ' current record in focus on the form
  vadd=tbl3.address
  vfilter=s_quote(vadd) + " $ address"
  if a5_get_records_in_query("nonserve addresses",vfilter)>0
     ui_msg_box("Attention","This is a NON SERVICE address. Do NOT Proceed",48)
  end if
  End

[draxx]

Re: Field to field comparison

Ok Guys... so I just got off the phone with Tom Cone and he figured out exactly what was wrong.... OPERATOR ERROR!!!!!!! Unfotunatley, when I copied the address into the other table, I left part of the address that was copied previously.... therefore, pf course it didn't match and bring up the message box. Sometimes, you have to be smarter than what you're chasing.

I believe all the previous code would have worked if not for my "stupid" attack. Thanks to all for your help. It was truly appreciated.

At least no more banging my head against the wall...lol.

Scott

[Al Buchholz]

Re: Field to field comparison

That's one of the reasons that a working example is the preferred method for explaining issues...

It fills in the gaps that we all leave in our explanations..

[draxx]

Re: Field to field comparison

Thanks Al,

That is true and I probably should have done that. My fault for being lazy..... Thanks for the reminder though.

Scott

[Mike Wilson]

Re: Field to field comparison

Scott,
This is where "contains" is useful. It probably would have worked and you could have figured it out sooner.

[draxx]

Re: Field to field comparison

Hey Mike,

I guess as my Grandmother used to say, "The stupid shall be punished"...lol.