XBASIC Conversion to Version 11's XBASIC, Action Scripting, Et Cetera

[sgerber]

I'm progressing well on my journey to upgrade a large V1 application to V11, largely because of the friendly assistance I've received here on the forums. "Alphaholics" are a great breed.

I'd like to impose on your time to help me in two areas:

1. Conversion of Reports and Labels - I've converted enough forms to realize the strong compatibility between the old and new versions of A5. I'd appreciate any comments regarding these objects. Is the syntax close enough that it's intuitive how to code V11 Reports? If not, what should I be reading?

2. Conversion of V1 Scripts. I'm attaching one of my more difficult scripts (it would be nice if you thought it was a piece of cake). I would appreciate your guidance as to how to proceed once you've seen the script.

If there are higher level tools in V11 than I had available in V1 which may enable replacing a fair amount of XBASIC, that would be wonderful. If so, please tell me where to look (I find that an overview of the technical tools is a bit hard to come by). If not, does the A5V11 documentation have any information aimed at converting XBASIC syntax, especially use of "cards" to the equivalent A11 syntax.

That's about it. I look forward to any comments.

The attached script is from an invoicing application. It asks the user to specify a time period for selection of sales information so that it can summarize totals of # of purchases and $ value of those purchases. That information is stored in the Customer table for subsequent querying. My son uses this information to decide who to mail his catalog to.

Here it is (hopefully). Thanks again ... Sam

a5v1script.txt

[Stan Mathews]

Re: XBASIC Conversion to Version 11's XBASIC, Action Scripting, Et Cetera

I think I caught most things that needed translation.

modern translation.txt

I would suggest you do the same with the summarize operation that you did with the update and post. Then the date variables can be easily incorporated into the script.

[sgerber]

Re: XBASIC Conversion to Version 11's XBASIC, Action Scripting, Et Cetera

Wow, Stan, thanks so much for the time you spent in reviewing my XBASIC code! After all these years it's astounding how similar XBASIC 11's syntax is to what I had learned back in V1. That's very good news for me.

You made the comment that you would "suggest" I do the same thing with the summarize function that I did with the update and post.

Does that mean that there's an alternative way to do it, such as an Action Script?

Is action scripting the new A5 answer to the old A5's "cards". If it is not, then can you position action scripting for me as an alernative to raw XBASIC? It sure was a relative no-brainer to fill out the cards than having to learn the XBASIC syntax.

Stan, thanks so much for giving your time to explain the differences in terms of modifying my old script. That was so kind of you and so much more effective than talking about it.

Best regards ... Sam

[Stan Mathews]

Re: XBASIC Conversion to Version 11's XBASIC, Action Scripting, Et Cetera

Does that mean that there's an alternative way to do it, such as an Action Script?

The alternative I envisioned was that your update and post "operations" (post v2 (at least) term) are "coded" in that you have replaced the card references with the script equivalents. Why not the summarize?

Is action scripting the new A5 answer to the old A5's "cards".

Don't know, no experience with cards. From your comments, cards seem to be synonomous with operations. Yes, it is easier to design operations and fill out the required settings but they are only frontends for the xbasic behind them.

Try designing a summarize operation and then convert it to xbasic. You can then see the feasibility of tweaking that xbasic to accept variables as parameters, accept dynamically derived table names, etc.

[Stan Mathews]

Re: XBASIC Conversion to Version 11's XBASIC, Action Scripting, Et Cetera

Does that mean that there's an alternative way to do it, such as an Action Script?

The alternative I envisioned was that your update and post "operations" (post v2 (at least) term) are "coded" in that you have replaced the card references with the script equivalents. Why not the summarize?

Is action scripting the new A5 answer to the old A5's "cards".

Don't know, no experience with cards. From your comments, cards seem to be synonomous with operations. Yes, it is easier to design operations and fill out the required settings but the are only frontends for the xbasic behind them.

Try designing a summarize operation and then convert it to xbasic. You can then see the feasibility of tweaking that xbasic to accept variables as parameters, accept dynamically derived table names, etc.

Eval() is especially useful.

str = "4"
eval("update.field"+str) = "QCNT2"

assigns "QCNT2" to the variable update.field4

for str = 1 to 4
eval("update.field"+alltrim(str(str)) = "QCNT"+alltrim(str(str))
next str

creates the assignments

update.field1 = "QCNT1"
update.field2 = "QCNT2"
update.field3 = "QCNT3"
update.field4 = "QCNT4"

just as if you had hard coded them.

[sgerber]

Re: XBASIC Conversion to Version 11's XBASIC, Action Scripting, Et Cetera

The eval example is clever. Careful, Stan, you don't want me to feel too inadequate do you?

You asked why I didn't do the summarize, like I did the update and post. The truth is I did them all as cards long ago. When I started running the application on WINXP the post and updates ran very very poorly for some reason, measured in minutes. When I converted the post and update they ran in only a few seconds. Never got around to summarize because it ran OK.

[Stan Mathews]

Re: XBASIC Conversion to Version 11's XBASIC, Action Scripting, Et Cetera

Here's an example using evaluate_template().

[COLOR="#0000FF"]'get a list of open stores with awgcode not blank and iga flag true[/COLOR]
iga = table.external_record_content_get("store","alltrim(sn)","storenumber","status = 'open' .and. alltrim(awgcode)>\"\" .and. iga")
[COLOR="#0000FF"]'take those store "numbers" and put "St" in front of each[/COLOR]
hrepl = *for_each(foo,"St"+padl(foo,3,"0"),iga)
[COLOR="#0000FF"]'count how many were found[/COLOR]
strs = w_count(hrepl,crlf())

[COLOR="#0000FF"]'start building a post operation[/COLOR]
a_tbl = table.open("mkt_pur",FILE_RW_EXCLUSIVE)
post.t_db = "P:\executive\hdb\Cost.DBF"
post.m_key = "val(remspecial(Upc))"
post.t_key = "val(F01)"
post.m_filter = ""
post.t_filter = ""
post.m_count = strs [COLOR="#0000FF"]'use count derived above[/COLOR]
[COLOR="#0000FF"]'loop through the list of stores[/COLOR]
FOR i = 1 TO strs
ufld = "post.m_field"+alltrim(str(i))
uexp = quote(word(hrepl,i,crlf()))
ustore = right(word(hrepl,i,crlf()),3)
[COLOR="#0000FF"]'next code line generates post lines like[/COLOR]
[COLOR="#0000FF"]' post.m_field38 = "St046"[/COLOR]
evaluate_template(ufld+" = "+uexp)
uexpv = "post.m_exp"+alltrim(str(i))
[COLOR="#0000FF"]'next code line generates a post line like[/COLOR]
[COLOR="#0000FF"]'post.m_exp1 = "if(@Cost->F1000 =\"046\",@COST->F38/@Cost->F19,St046)"[/COLOR]
evaluate_template(uexpv +" = "+ quote("if(@Cost->F1000="+quote(ustore)+",@Cost->F38/@Cost->F19,"+unquote2("St"+ustore)+")"))
post.t_count = 0
NEXT i
a_tbl.post()
a_tbl.close()

The benefit to me is that when a new store is opened (or closed) I merely add (or delete) that store number to the store table and add (or delete) a field for it in the mkt_pur table. The code changes for the posting script are "self healing".

[sgerber]

Re: XBASIC Conversion to Version 11's XBASIC, Action Scripting, Et Cetera

Stan, you're making my brain sore. Is it OK if I come back to this after I've converted all my scripts? I'll have a much better chance of understanding it. Why do I have a feeling you really know your Alpha Five?

[CALocklin]

Re: XBASIC Conversion to Version 11's XBASIC, Action Scripting, Et Cetera

You missed a "minor but significant" issue, Stan. The old a_app_current_path (or something like that) included a backslash on the end and a5.get_path() doesn't.

So.....
_DB_NAME = a5.get_path() + "INV_HEAD.DBF"

needs to be....
_DB_NAME = a5.get_path() + "\INV_HEAD.DBF"

[Stan Mathews]

Re: XBASIC Conversion to Version 11's XBASIC, Action Scripting, Et Cetera

So right you are. Thanks for the assist.

[sgerber]

Re: XBASIC Conversion to Version 11's XBASIC, Action Scripting, Et Cetera

You missed a "minor but significant" issue, Stan. The old a_app_current_path (or something like that) included a backslash on the end and a5.get_path() doesn't.

So.....
_DB_NAME = a5.get_path() + "INV_HEAD.DBF"

needs to be....
_DB_NAME = a5.get_path() + "\INV_HEAD.DBF"

Cal, this is so trivial but it looks like you're showing the opposite of what you're saying. The "needs to be" example has the "\".

Probably I'm wrong.

[Stan Mathews]

Re: XBASIC Conversion to Version 11's XBASIC, Action Scripting, Et Cetera

Because you will need the backslash. a5.get_path() yields the current database path, without the backslash.

[sgerber]

Re: XBASIC Conversion to Version 11's XBASIC, Action Scripting, Et Cetera

I must be stupid or have lost the ability to communicate.

If the new syntax yields the path WITHOUT the backslash, why is Cal inserting it?
_DB_NAME = a5.get_path() + "\INV_HEAD.DBF"

[Stan Mathews]

Re: XBASIC Conversion to Version 11's XBASIC, Action Scripting, Et Cetera

I've never been able to specify a path to a file (table) without the full path. The full path includes a backslash between the lowest directory level and the filename.

A_APP_CURRENT_PATH included the backslash in its result.
A5.get_path() does not.

examples (sample)
A_APP_CURRENT_PATH+ "INV_HEAD.DBF" -> "C:\mydatabase\INV_HEAD.DBF"
A5.get_path()+"INV_HEAD.DBF" -> "C:\mydatabaseINV_HEAD.DBF"
A5.get_path()+"\INV_HEAD.DBF" -> "C:\mydatabase\INV_HEAD.DBF"

[sgerber]

Re: XBASIC Conversion to Version 11's XBASIC, Action Scripting, Et Cetera

Thanks for the explanation Stan. I understand it now. I had read Cal's posting incorrectly.