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From: murrell@trlsasb.oz (Phil Murrell - Computer Facilities Group)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: dBASE IV bugs
Message-ID: <10889@trlsasb.oz>
Date: 13 Jul 89 12:14:16 GMT
Organization: Switch Networks Research Branch, Telecom Research
Lines: 33


  I have been having some problems with dBase4 that, after talking to the
local Ashton Tate hotline, appear to be bugs in dBase4 V1.0. Perhaps these
bugs are widely known, but I haven't seen any lists of known bugs and
thought that they may save someone else the same problems.
  The first involves the use of the "@M" function in a GET statement. It 
appears to randomly upset PICTURE specifications attached to further GETS
in print statements. I had two examples, the first involved selecting a
type of form to print with the "@M" function and the form when printing
would misalign one of the data fields into the wrong column while leaving
the other fields ok. The second occurred on page two of a multiple screen
form, you could page down from screen 1 on any field except the "@M" field.
If you chose that field, all numerical fields on screen 2 would misalign.
  While this problem wasted a week, the second problem is of more concern
as it seems harder to program around. At what appears to be seemingly
random times, I get an insufficient memory message which always occurs
on a line containing a macro. The PC running the program has approx 530k
of available memory on a NOVEL network with Printer Assist. When it crashes
it has between 35K and 58K of "Available memory". Our local dealer suggests
that I am to close to the limits and did not offer much in the way of fixes.
I have removed all macros and cut back on the variable and run time space
allocations, but I suspect that I still have problems.

 Ashton tate have said that Version 1.1 will be released in September/October
and that it will use less RAM, allow EMS and have fixes for the "@M" problem
among other fixes, but I need a product that can survive until then.

 It would be great to hear about any other known bugs so that people like
myself could avoid them instead of finding out the hard way.

                                                
Phil Murrell
Internet: Murrell@trlsasb.oz.au