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From: awd@dbase.A-T.COM (Alastair Dallas)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: dBASE IV bug in @...GET
Summary: Sorry 'bout that...
Message-ID: <473@dbase.A-T.COM>
Date: 17 Mar 90 16:20:45 GMT
References: <19664.25ffd528@ccavax.camb.com>
Organization: Ashton Tate Development Center Glendale, Calif.
Lines: 38


I have no idea why dBASE IV behaves that way, and I don't know the 
history of how it was fixed, but your program behaves incorrectly
(just as you say) on the release 1.0 version of dBASE IV and behaves
correctly on the current beta release 1.1 version.  The 1.0 release
was internal build 322 and the build I checked it on is 455--we've
been busy around here.  It's an understatement to say that there
are a lot of little things to worry about in a program as complex
as dBASE IV.  It's about 600,000 lines of source code and it's
very hard to test for conditions such as the one you found--imagine
the matrix you build when you want to test every permutation of
each command and then test every subsequent command against each
permutation of the first command?  I think it's fair to say that
Ashton-Tate is currently "pushing the envelope" of what's considered
reasonable software quality assurance--we have a wide variety of  
automated and human testing going on, including several hundred
beta test sites.  I'd like to say that I'm shocked that a bug
found it's way into 1.0, but I can honestly say that I would have
been very surprised to find such a problem in the almost-ready 1.1.

I'm sorry if this problem caused you any trouble.  One workaround
for now would be to insert the lines:

@ 5,1 get homeprice
clear gets
@ 5,1 say space(12)

before the DO WHILE loop.  It seems that Ctrl-End causes the GET
code to return without completely cleaning up the PICTure processing
variables.  The workaround goes into GET and leaves cleanly.

Maybe our new motto should be: We're working on it.

/alastair/

Disclaimer> The usual; these are my opinions, not those of my employer
and if I've said anything that violates my trade secrecy agreement then
I didn't mean to and may I be struck by lightning and legal stuff like that.