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Index Tip?

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    #16
    Re: Index Tip?

    Index corruption is easy to repair and detect if you are the developer and at the same time the user, but if you develop something for a hospital who has a clerk 50 yrs old and above, who just feeds data suppose to be and the bills for a patient is available immediately when he/she needs it. I cant tell them take note of every medicines, services etc of every patient so that when it is time to bill them then they can compare their own notes to the one that is on the alpha five application. I have read about index issues on this forum and i noticed it dates back since 2001, I hope alpha five can make SQL server 2008 or sql sever 2012 as their native backend and not dbf, I am sure their sales will quadruple in the next 2 days.

    Comment


      #17
      Re: Index Tip?

      So Alpha is responsible for your bad application design and lack of attention to detail?
      It doesn't sound like anything to do with the index, it's your design that's at fault.
      And I think your "ageist" coment in inappropriate.
      See our Hybrid Option here;
      https://hybridapps.example-software.com/


      Apologies to anyone I haven't managed to upset yet.
      You are held in a queue and I will get to you soon.

      Comment


        #18
        Re: Index Tip?

        And these are properly researched facts?
        Originally posted by doorscomputers View Post
        -Index corruption is easy to repair and detect if you are the developer and at the same time the user
        -but (not?) if you develop something for a hospital who has a clerk 50 yrs old and above,
        -who just feeds data suppose to be
        -alpha five can make SQL server 2008 or sql sever 2012 as their native backend and not dbf, sales will quadruple in 2 days.
        Sounds like a jetson to me, I thought he left the building

        Comment


          #19
          Re: Index Tip?

          Originally posted by Ray in Capetown View Post
          And these are properly researched facts?

          Sounds like a jetson to me, I thought he left the building
          Ted Giles, Are you paid by alpha to comment on every message here? there are many unanswered questions, look at them and answer it. did I say it is the fault of alpha? I just noticed that index corruption has been an issue when you started to sign up here on the message board. I just made a comment that maybe alpha five can change their native dbf to SQL Server, would you be unhappy if they do that? You see, index will be corrupted when a power failure or improper shutdown, these are the main causes, and developers of the application will not always be there to check if the records showing are the correct ones.sure it will be fixed alright but for an application that involves money, it is not tolerated, Now Ted Giles, It is just a comment, if Alpha Software Company cannot do it, then fine with me,but if they can change the native DBF to SQL Server then like I said it is for the benefit of the company and all the other users except for Ted Giles who maybe doesnt want Sql Server.Tell me if the comment is bad so that i will post on this board how GOOD is the dbf in enterprise application so that You Ted Giles will be happy about it. Would it be so baaaaad to suggest here.

          And Ray in Capetown , whether it is Jetson or Watson or Kuratong? what can you suggest for alpha five to be a much better RAD tool ? are you not going to be happy if SQL will be the native backend of alpha. I noticed that both you you are always in Tandem. Lets just continue posting solutions and not to comment on some newbies, after all, nobody will care to look at this message board if he/she does not want any help, if someone asked and you know the answer then just answer, if you are lazy or does not know the answer then just Shut up okay. Now, to begin with I will post two Templates for newbies to appreciate.
          It is an Invoice Template and a contact management template just for Noobs.

          By the way, Ted Giles and Ray in Capetown, will you show to the whole world how to design the two templates so that future users will not have an index corruption, both of you, your solutions will be the model for every new user to imitate. and If in the future a newbie will have a problem in index corruption, then we will direct him/her to the template that you are going to modify,I am sure that your modified version will be free of index corruptions, it will benefit millions of alpha user,
          Attached Files
          Last edited by doorscomputers; 08-01-2012, 05:37 AM.

          Comment


            #20
            Re: Index Tip?

            Ira has already documented this , so suggest you research the problem more. When you have done some investigation I'm sure someone will help.
            Until you complete your Forum Profile, I'm not going to respond.

            Having said that, look at the index names. You may get problems with similar named indeces in different tables when the first 8 chars are the same.
            You may also get problems if the first 8 chars are the same in a single table.
            I don't know why, it just happens.
            Suggest you try changing the IDX names to something like alpha, beta, theta etc.
            If your profiles was conmplete I could send an example.
            Last edited by Ted Giles; 08-01-2012, 07:18 AM.
            See our Hybrid Option here;
            https://hybridapps.example-software.com/


            Apologies to anyone I haven't managed to upset yet.
            You are held in a queue and I will get to you soon.

            Comment


              #21
              Re: Index Tip?

              Thank you Ted for the Tip, Never mind my profiles, just post your solutions and suggestions for the benefit of everyone,especially on index issues, after all, the purpose of this message board is to help alpha users who are trying to learn alpha five, and you won't expect newbies to contribute here immediately, of course the situation would be for you to give and give, and newbies will take and take, then in the process, newbies will soon become experts and in return if they like then they will also help new newbies. and in addition to that, if newbies will be trying HARD to contribute then you would expect inaccurate answers and it will confuse their fellow noobs like me right? If beginners ask questions, for sure they cannot find specific answers on this board, maybe, instead of telling them to search the board then why not answer the question immediately if someone knows it.Dont take messages or post personally, just answer what you know, and if you dont know or dont want to help then just leave the question as it is and I'm sure the user will try to find a way to look for a solution himself/herself. Anyway, it is just a suggestion based on my own opinion.BTW, based on my previous opinion, would you prefer for alpha software company to stick to DBF as the native backend of Desktop apps? or would you rather agree with me that it should be SQL Server or MYSQL?

              If SQL Server or MYSQL then, the posting field rule will be a huge time saver, instead of creating triggers and stored procedures. Triggers i've heard and watched from an AppDev tutorial is not recommended.
              Last edited by doorscomputers; 08-01-2012, 09:37 AM.

              Comment


                #22
                Re: Index Tip?

                Hi Roman,

                Whist evryone is entlted to their own opinion, I do not think it is your's or even mine, to tell other users on this forum how to answer questions.

                I agree with you that, on the face of it, to answer a question with, "search the forum", might seem like, "why did you bother to reply", but in many cases that is a very good answer. There is so much to learn here, just having a quick reply can mean you miss finding those golden nuggets.

                May I ask, why are you suggesting that Alpha drop DBF files? They may very do so in the future, but I cant see that happening for a while.

                I dont think it is of any value to you to get the odd users opinion about what file types you think Alpha should use when the thread is about Indexes. How would that help anyone in the future when they do a search?
                Regards
                Keith Hubert
                Alpha Guild Member
                London.
                KHDB Management Systems
                Skype = keith.hubert


                For your day-to-day Needs, you Need an Alpha Database!

                Comment


                  #23
                  Re: Index Tip?

                  The only time I have had problems with memo fields/files becoming corrupted was in the developement cycle or when copying data.

                  Example: you have a memo field in a table and you copy the dbf and associated fpt to do maintenance. After that you copy only the dbf file back to the app, you could have a bad memo file. It may not be synched to the dbf.

                  Indexes/indices are the old cdx files we have had forever in several programs/languages(not just alpha). As long as you keep the indexes short and not too complicated, they seem to work fine. Mixing number fields with character and maybe a date field is sheer lunacy. (MY opinion)

                  I am 65 and can keep up with most 30 year olds. All my girlfriends for the past 7 years have been over 50(except 1) and quite smart. Further it to say, the biggest problems would be the younger("TRY THINGS") generation.
                  Dave Mason
                  [email protected]
                  Skype is dave.mason46

                  Comment


                    #24
                    Re: Index Tip?

                    just post your solutions and suggestions for the benefit of everyone,especially on index issues, after all, the purpose of this message board is to help alpha users who are trying to learn alpha five
                    Unfortunately you have got of to a bad start by "dissing" the product we have adopted and been using for many years. Our knowledge came the hard way by trial and error and investigation, so simply giving you a solution won't really help you as it might work for us but not for you. Although I'm not particularly possessive of my knowledge, it's nice to be able to help someone who really wants assistance and appreciates the time taken to investigate and reply. IMHO you seem to take offense at a lot of the replies. There is no shame in asking for more info. or confessiong that you don't understand something.

                    Gabe, helped me out recently with what I am ashamed to say, was an approach I simply hadn't considered. I've run with it and am now on track for additional functionailty. It could be argued that I should have known the approach, but sometimes a poke in the right direction is needed. My approach was too complex.

                    As for the database back end. Sorry Roman, it's not my place to advise Alpha on their database strategy. If you want to use SQL get a free copy of "Toad" or "SQL Workbench" and start developing. Alpha connects to almost anything.

                    And finally, arrogant as I am, I wouldn't dare pit my wits against the real old time coders on the Forum, so perhaps you will be able to test my theory on your examples and re-post them as a template for success.
                    And I'm serious. The indeces in the examples posted are ambitious - see Dave's comment regarding dates and text. If you have a thorough testing plan then it should be easy to replicate the problem and demonstrate a solution.
                    See our Hybrid Option here;
                    https://hybridapps.example-software.com/


                    Apologies to anyone I haven't managed to upset yet.
                    You are held in a queue and I will get to you soon.

                    Comment


                      #25
                      Re: Index Tip?

                      May I suggest that if you are still having index and/or memo file problems, Post a full example db up to this forum so otherscan take a look. What might make sense to you, may not be what works best. Others may be able to make comments that will help you.

                      Making an ultimatum to the people here wishing to help you WILL turn them off.
                      Dave Mason
                      [email protected]
                      Skype is dave.mason46

                      Comment


                        #26
                        Re: Index Tip?

                        First table I looked at:
                        Activities

                        Activity_I ACTIVITY_ID Ascending Unique only
                        Client_Id CLIENT_ID Ascending All
                        Client_Id1 CLIENT_ID .T. Ascending All
                        Client_Id2 CLIENT_ID + CDATE(DATE) .T. Ascending All
                        Client_Id3 CLIENT_ID + INVERT(CDATE(DATE)) .T. Ascending All
                        Reminder CLIENT_ID COMPLETED=.F..AND.GOAL_DATE<=DATE() Ascending All


                        next:
                        appointments

                        "Cdate "CDATE(DATE)+TYPE" Ascending All
                        Activity_I APPOINTMENT_ID Ascending All
                        Appointmen APPOINTMENT_ID Ascending Unique only
                        Client_Id CLIENT_ID Ascending All
                        Client_Id1 CLIENT_ID .T. Ascending All
                        Client_Id2 CLIENT_ID COMPLETED=.F. Ascending All
                        Client_Id3 CLIENT_ID + INVERT(CDATE(DATE)) Ascending All


                        Others may like these indexes, Not for me.
                        Last edited by DaveM; 08-01-2012, 04:58 PM.
                        Dave Mason
                        [email protected]
                        Skype is dave.mason46

                        Comment


                          #27
                          Re: Index Tip?

                          Originally posted by doorscomputers View Post
                          I just close and open alpha, design some forms and close then open.Nothing more, there are no deletes. Sometimes alpha five stops responding, maybe that was the reason?Not sure, maybe someone has an experience on this.
                          When Alpha5 stops responding something is causing it to stop responding. Resolve that issue then if you still have bad indexes you can start working on resolving those. If you would like help from the forums upload a copy of your database for others to look at and analyze.
                          Andrew

                          Comment


                            #28
                            Re: Index Tip?

                            Going out the essence of this board again, lets go back to the main concern.
                            If this would be your application, are you going to have this 2 indexes only?
                            Appointment APPOINTMENT_ID Ascending Unique only
                            Activity_I ACTIVITY_ID Ascending Unique only
                            The one I posted was a template that I came across the Internet created by a certain John Manngo i think. The Order template has a good design right? To make it simple, let us discard the contact management application and concentrate our design techniques on the order app. according to my experience, only months of using alpha, the design maybe good. Now, i have tested it before and i still get some index corruption, what could be wrong in the design of the application? I have a UPS so no improper shutdown of alpha five and windows could cause the index corruption.

                            Comment


                              #29
                              Re: Index Tip?

                              Unless someone has already suggested, and the app is multi-user, on a LAN, I would look into "oportunistic record locking."

                              http://www.dataaccess.com/whitepaper...adcaching.html

                              Also, when you say "corruption," I presume you are saying you have gone to design mode and checked that the indexes are stlll there and are still spelled the same on the master app on the server..
                              Cole Custom Programming - Terrell, Texas
                              972 524 8714
                              [email protected]

                              ____________________
                              "A young man who is not liberal has no heart, but an old man who is not conservative has no mind." GB Shaw

                              Comment


                                #30
                                Re: Index Tip?

                                Originally posted by aschone View Post
                                When Alpha5 stops responding something is causing it to stop responding. Resolve that issue then if you still have bad indexes you can start working on resolving those. If you would like help from the forums upload a copy of your database for others to look at and analyze.
                                Seems like a Ray in capetown style, Okey, nice original advice, go back to post number 19 and you will find 2 zip files, just in case you know, post your modification to solve index corruption issue.concentrate on the order application.

                                Comment

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