NETWORK & SHADOW ISSUE

[Rawlings]

Hi Everybody,
I have an application that runs on a central server were
all users can accesss all records. There are some tables in
my application that desinged to contain only one record at a time and must be emptied before it is opened/used. Some of these tables are indexed and are part of a set with forms. The problem that I have is that many times A5 will report that these files are in use by another person on the network & will not allow the table to be emptied before opening it. What I want is to make these tables local on each users local drive & not part of the shadow tables but still part of the application as I update all index at each startup. I called A5 tech support one guy
told me to add these tables to my part after the shadow has be created to replace it's shadow table - these idea was abandoned after he found out that the runtime cannot be used to add tables. Another person at A5 tech told me that it is impossible to make any table that is part of an local for different users outside the shadow. Any idea & help from anyone will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Rawlings

[Peter.Greulich]

RE: NETWORK & SHADOW ISSUE

If there is only one record in certain tables, you don't need an index. Rather than do what you are suggesting, it would be better to allow each user to have "their" record in the table. Query on the user_id so the user only sees their own record. Delete the record as needed.

[Jim Chapman]

RE: NETWORK & SHADOW ISSUE

Hello Rawlings,

Although I am just talking off the top of my head here, I think there are several ways to do what you are wanting. First, I agree with Peter, that it makes sense to have a single table and based on a users log in, to retrieve a certain record from this table. But;

Normally you want all tables to be in a single directory, so Alpha doesn't 'hard code' a path. But in your case you should be able to use this to your advantage. Lets say your files are in the directory C:\A5apps\myDatabase. If you created a seperate path to the table in question, say : C:\localTable\MyTableName.dbf. Add this table to your database. Now add this path and table to each workstation. Now you should have a hard coded path that points to a specific table on each users local computer.

Also, via xbasic you could access any table anywhere, whether or not it was part of the database. Also, if you are dealing with a single record table, it might make some sense to use a text file instead. You could create this text file locally and have the database routines access it.

Good luck,
Jim