Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!apple!netcomsv!rodent From: rodent@netcom.COM (Ben Discoe) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st.tech Subject: Re: DBMan Programming question (ALSO Lattice gripes) Message-ID: <1991May2.002600.28269@netcom.COM> Date: 2 May 91 00:26:00 GMT References: <6118@vela.acs.oakland.edu> Sender: netnews@netcom.COM (USENET Administration) Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services UNIX System {408 241-9760 guest} Lines: 38 swood@vela.acs.oakland.edu ( EVENSONG) writes: >I am about to delve into the world of DBman and DataBase III+ style programming I happen to have written a lot of the code in dBMAN (especially the Amiga and Atari versions) so I can surely help. >I am hoping to be able to do a search of a couple of various feilds in my >database. >a finished string might look like : 'AB?D?F?H??KLM?O???ST??WX?Z' >I am going to be writing a program then to find the closest match(es) Well the dBMAN (and dBASE) way of doing this would be to write a UDF (or procedure) that scans two strings, character by character, and sums up how close they are. Then you simply scan the database a record at a time to find the closest record. Rather simple. Speaking of dBMAN, I can't release the latest version for the Atari until there is a compiler that supports the 68030! (we have only a TT030 for development) Mark Williams compiles, but has no debugger (well, it has a crude monitor that doesn't run on the TT anyway) and recently decided not to support the Atari at all. Lattice also compiles, but the executable won't run with a 68030 and the debugger doesn't support the 030 either. Lattice (Hisoft, actually) does have a 68030 version - but they want developers to pay $300 MORE just to BETA-TEST it. Sheesh! This (incompatiblity of existing software with the latest hardware) is kind of sad compared to the Amiga... we use a 4-year old compiler on our Amiga 3000, which runs perfectly (even the source-level debugger) and creates trouble-free executables. I assume this is because the OS was intended to gracefully scale upwards, unlike the Atari. Perhaps the developers just ignored or lacked a set of compatibility guidelines. >swood --------------- Ben Discoe, radical ecologist, amigoid, computer scientist. Like everyone else in San Jose, I only live here 'cuz the job.