What's Up, DOCumentation? 1996 #3

Marie started out as the do-everything person and, being an outgoing person, gravitated towards Sales. She is now juggling the jobs of managing the Marketing and Sales department along with being the Value-Added Reseller Liaison.

Mike and Marie have both spent a considerable amount of time on the phone at Robelle. Let's see, if Mike and Marie each averaged only ten phone calls per day, that's roughly 50,000 calls! Here's to another successful ten years to both of them! [Ken Robertson]

New: Suprtool Now Reads Allbase Tables

Sort Data Up to Twice as Fast as ALLBASE/SQL

Suprtool 3.8.11 adds access to HP ALLBASE/SQL databases on both platforms by means of the familiar Select command. Suprtool can sort selected records up to twice as fast as Allbase, thus freeing system resources for other applications. For example, if Suprtool's Sort command is used instead of the SQL Select...Order By command, users can reduce their sort times by as much as 50%. The Allbase access module is available immediately as a pre-release, and will be priced as an add-on module to the basic Suprtool package.

Robelle Products: Problems, Solutions, and Suggestions

All Products

IMAGE Prefetch Bug -- But Which O/S Versions?

When should prefetch actually be used? As per Marguerite Bryan of the HP Response Center in issue #20 of the IMAGE Support Newsletter, you may use prefetch when

1. The system has adequate memory available to manage the increased data page locality as well as adequate processor capability to handle increased concurrency of processes.

2. The application makes numerous calls to DBPUT, DBDELETE, or most recently DBUPDATE to critical items. Other TurboIMAGE intrinsics only read or update data, not pointers or counters where multi-block access is a real issue.

3. As PREFETCH is intended to increase database concurrency, multiple users must be processing data before the benefit can be realized. Prefetching data blocks offer little or no benefit to single processes executing against a database.

The problems have been found in TurboIMAGE versions C.04.06 through C.04.08 on MPE/iX release 4.0. This problem is documented in detail in SR 5000-668673 and can be fixed by installing the patch TIXFX04 (TurboIMAGE C.04.09).

Getting Rid of Old Qedit Workfiles

Here's our job stream for cleaning up old (random, permanent) Qedit workfiles:

 !job cleanqed,manager.sys;outclass=archive,1
 !comment
 !comment    4 June 1996  HH  Deletes old Qedit workfiles (QED)
 !comment
 !comment                     Run once weekly.
 !comment
 !run main.pub.vesoft
 yespurge qed#####.@.@(code="QEDIT" and ACCDATE < today-1 &
                               and not opened)
 exit
 !eoj

Suprtool Version 3.8

Suprtool and Netbase Problem

This problem may occur if you are using the Netbase product from Quest Software to access a file on a remote machine. Suprtool/iX 3.8 does not identify these files correctly. Select one of these three solutions:

1. Patch the program.

   :run sompatch.pub.sys
   sp> open suprtool.pub
   sp> mod get_open_file+290
   get_open_file + 290  48960160       {must see this number}
   44b60050                            {you type this in}
   48960160|44b60050                   {double check what is
                                       returned here}
   sp> modify get_open_file+294
   get_open_file + 294  d2d61ff0       {must see this number}
   08000240                            {you must type this in}
   d2d61ff0|8000240                    {double check what is
                                       returned here}
   sp> exit
   Total number of patches being applied 1

   Set Prefetch 0   {zero}

3. Request the latest version. The bug has been fixed in the latest pre-release, which is available on request. If you are already running a pre-release version of Suprtool and you need the patch, please call tech support for a new pre-release tape.

And They Said It Couldn't Be Done...

Here's an example of a daunting report:

 ACCT CONTACT-NAME                   ADDRESS-TYPE
 206J Fred Flintstone                MAIN
 206J Fred Flintstone                INVOICE
 206J Fred Flintstone                TAPE
 206K Freakazoid!                    MAIN
 206K Freakazoid!                    INVOICE

Let's first get the records that are the originals by using Dup None. We won't forget to Set Squeeze Off so that we have enough room to append records in the second pass.

 >get     d-address
 >define  my-acct acct-no
 >extract my-acct,acct-no,contact-name
 >extract address-type
 >output  bigfile,link
 >sort    my-acct
 >sort    contact-name
 >dup     none key
 >set     squeeze off
 >xeq

 >get     d-address
 >define  my-acct acct-no
 >extract my-acct,acct-no=" ",contact-name=" "
 >extract address-type
 >sort    my-acct
 >sort    contact-name
 >dup     only key
 >output  bigfile,append
 >xeq

 >in      bigfile
 >sort    my-acct
 >extract acct-no / address-type
 >list    standard
 >xeq
 ACCT CONTACT-NAME                   ADDRESS-TYPE
 206J Fred Flintstone                MAIN
                                     INVOICE
                                     TAPE
 206K Freakazoid!                    MAIN
                                     INVOICE

Qedit Version 4.4

Sorting Data with Qedit

Our solution? Use Qedit's Lsort command instead of Suprtool:

 /text filex,unn
 /lsort first+1/last-1 keys 1,10
 /keep,yes

Changing Strings with Nonprinting Characters

 /set decimal on
 /changeq '27"&dJ" '27"&dD" all

 /appendq '13'10 all                {carriage-return line-feed}

Updated MON, SEP 16, 1996. Comments?

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