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March 2003
To: Users of Robelle Software Re: News of the HP e3000 and Robelle Our newsletter publication has been monthly for over a year now. Publication has been on-line, with an email notification to each customer. Each issue is jam-packed with articles, but if you get as much email as I do, you may have missed this valuable service. Back issues can be reviewed at http://www.robelle.com/newsletterThe Robelle newsletter really needs to be read on-line, since the headline of every story is actually a web link to the full story or more information. In the interest of keeping the newsletter short and readable, the details are often to be found in the web links. The on-line newsletter is at http://www.robelle.com/library/newsletter/latest.html Table of Contents: |
Suprtool Course Updated for Eloquence 7
The slides and training material for our Suprtool course have been revised and updated to include Eloquence on HP-UX. Also, instructor Jeff Kubler is giving a 2-day Suprtool class April 18 - 19th, 2003 at Tech Group University. Click the link above for Power Point files, PDF versions, and web links for the April class.
Suprtool 4.6.03 is available as a pre-release for customers on support. Here are the new features in this version, for both MPE and HP-UX:
* The Clean command in STExport and Suprtool have improved syntax to define a range of characters to replace.
* Suprtool now has a $SubTotal function.
* Suprtool can now split byte strings into multiple fields
* Suprlink can now do many-to-many links via the Join command.
* Suprlink and STExport now report the number of output records in a manner similar to Suprtool.
* The $counter function was not reset in between tasks.
* Extract from a table would incorrectly report an error in some cases.
FTP Passwords with Vesoft's Security/3000
François Desrochers of Robelle ran into a problem accessing our HP3000 with ftp. It kept on rejecting the connection request. More specifically, it was rejecting the login information. To read how he identified the exact problem and corrected it, click the link above.
John Burke writes a column called net.digest monthly in the 3000 NewsWire. Here is a link to the February 2003 column, which includes, among other things, a good discussion of MPE priority queues that started with the question “I would like to slow jobs down in the 'E' queue. How should I change the 'E' queue?”
QWIN Syntax Highlighting for Suprtool
In a previous article, we have explained how to customize a language template to add additional syntax coloring to your Qedit for Windows environment. Today, we will show you how to add syntax coloring for Suprtool commands to an existing language template.
New: Many-to-Many Links with Suprlink
Neil Armstrong writes: Over the years, many customers have come to us asking for the ability to do many-to-many links, instead of just one-to-one and many-to-one. François Desrochers, wrote a script to use Suprtool to achieve this, but it involved multiple passes over the same file. While it was an ingenious solution, we still were not happy with the performance.
In the office, Bob was not looking very happy. After having spent the past year focused on the management of Robelle and only occasionally getting a chance to program with Qedit, I could tell what Bob needed: some programming time.
I assigned him the task of getting many-to-many working over the Christmas holidays. Bob dug in, and the result is that Suprlink can now join files together that have multiple key value matches in each file.
Exporting data with Suprtool to Excel is easy and well documented on our web site. But how do you put data back into Image or Eloquence databases after you have edited it in Excel? When the request comes to us, the user has probably exported the data out of Excel and is having trouble getting it back into Suprtool. Typically in Excel, Numbers entered directly into Excel use the "general" or the "number" formats. When they are saved as a txt file the numbers are difficult to import into Suprtool, because they are usually right aligned, have a decimal point and do not have leading zeroes.
Click the link above to find out how to get around this problem!
Suprtool now has the ability to keep a running subtotal for any numeric field based on a given sort key (as of version 4.6.03).
The target data must be a packed field with 28 digits, in order to help avoid overflow issues.
A sample use of the $subtotal function could be:
>def mytotal,1,14,packed >get orders >sort order-number >ext order-number >ext part-number >ext description >ext sales-amount >ext mytotal = $subtotal(sales-amount,order-number) >out sales,link >xeq
For more information, click the link above.
Suprtool Clean Command Enhanced
In Suprtool and STExport 4.6.02 we added the Clean command designed to look for characters that you want to find and replace. This was done to replace "garbage" data with a valid character of your choice.
The Clean command has improved syntax to specify which characters to look for and replace. You can specify special characters Decimal 0 thru Decimal 31 via the command:
Clean special
You can also specify a range or characters by using the following syntax:
Clean "^0:^31","^240:^255"
This enhancement makes it much easier to define characters to search for and Clean. This enhancement is available in Suprtool 4.6.03, which is available for download from our web site.
HP Proposes New MPE Licenses for Emulators
The 3000 Newswire reports:
"Homesteading customers of the HP 3000 got a new hook to hang their hopes upon Feb. 22, when HP posted its first cut after midnight about licensing details for new copies of MPE. ..First draft of HP’s offer to cost $500; company expects to issue licenses in 2004."
Click the link above for more details.
Acucorp is offering free-of-charge online seminars on how to effectively migrate HP e3000 COBOL in to ACUCOBOL, which then can run on any platform. These free 50-minute online seminars will explore the most practical and cost-effective methods of migrating and modernising your HP e3000 COBOL applications.
Part 1 COBOL & VPLUS. When: Tuesday, February 11, 2003 at 3pm GMT, UK time! Where: At the comfort of your desk via your favourite Web browser - Internet Explorer or Netscape. Included in the discussion will be: Practical outline of Acucorp solutions for the HP 3000 migration market. COBOL/VPLUS to ACUCOBOL-GT migration demonstration. Life after migration - overview of further application enhancement and modernization options available in the Acucorp environment. An interactive Q & A session with our panel of experts: Nigel Eaton and Stephen Hjerpe from Acucorp together with Alan Yeo, ScreenJet and Jeanette Nutsford, Computometric Systems Ltd.
Part 2 COBOL & Image. When: Coming soon! Included in the discussion will be: Practical outline of Acucorp solutions for the HP 3000 migration market. COBOL/Image to Eloquence migration demonstration. Life after migration - overview of further application enhancement and modernization options available in the Acucorp environment An interactive Q & A session with our panel of experts: Nigel Eaton and Stephen Hjerpe from Acucorp together with Michael Marxmeier, Marxmeier Software AG and Jeanette Nutsford, Computometric Systems Ltd
Info via Alan Yeo at ScreenJet.com
Alfredo Rego writes: For many years, Adager's "Manual" (we call it "Your Adager Guide") has been online in HTML as well as PDF. So, following your request in the latest newsletter, here is the info:
HTML: www.adager.com/AdagerGuideTOC.fm.html
PDF: www.adager.com/TechnicalPapersPDF/AdagerGuide.Book.pdf
John Burke has a great monthly column in the 3000 Newswire where he gets experts to answer HP 3000 technical questions from users. Click the link for the Feb 2003 column, which discusses FTP security, spoofle number overflow, DLT tape life, MDX, POSIX pipes, and much more.
Robelle Solutions Technology Inc. provides the What's Up, DOCumentation? newsletter as a service to our customers. The newsletter is available on the web: in HTML format for browsing and PDF format for printing. Visit www.robelle.com/library/newsletter/
Comments about this issue, as well as ideas for future issues, including news, tips, and suggestions for articles, can be sent to bgreen@robelle.com.
"What Has Been Happening at Robelle?"
Homesteading: HP 3000 Reference Information
Change Trailing Spaces to Leading Zeroes
Qedit/UX Length Feature
Combine Three Fields Into One
Click the link above for the web version, or print the PDF version
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