Xref: utzoo comp.databases:672 comp.sys.ibm.pc:11248 Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!labrea!rutgers!bellcore!wind!tr From: tr@wind.bellcore.com (tom reingold) Newsgroups: comp.databases,comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: DB3 III and MATH ?? Message-ID: <5164@bellcore.bellcore.com> Date: 30 Jan 88 12:31:13 GMT References: <1971@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> Sender: news@bellcore.bellcore.com Reply-To: tr@wind.UUCP (tom reingold) Distribution: na Organization: Bellcore, Morristown, Noo Joizy Lines: 41 At my last job, I programmed in dBase III extensively and I think I still remember it. (I left in spring '87). I had to use so many tricks to compensate for the bad design of dBase III. I had at least two solutions to problems similar to yours. One is to buy dBase Tools for C. This is 1) a library of routines that are loaded into memory and callable from dBase. The calling sequence and the setup procedure is so bad, I would not recommend this package. It is also 2) a way by which you can write functions to add to the ones that are loaded in memory. I never got around to trying it because it had the disadvantages of (1) and a screwy way of writing the additional routines. I hope Ashton Tate programmers someday get shot for their designs. Another solution seems more kludgy but works better. Get your data into a small temporary database. I assume you can do this. Then use the "copy to delimited with blank" command. This will create a text file that a C program can read. Then from within your dBase program, run the C program with "run myprog". The C program will read in the text file, do the calculations, then write out a new text file. Then in your dbase program, use a new and empty database and grab the data using the "append from delimited with blank" command. Then move this data back into your main database. One bug in this second solution is that the computer tended to hang if I did many "run" commands and I had to start over. I think "many" means about 75. The "copy" command can operate on a range so that the data you are sending to the first file may not have to be in a temporary database. You may be able to use "copy rest to delimited with blank" or something like that. Any more questions? Tom Reingold INTERNET: tr@bellcore.bellcore.com Bell Communications Research UUCP: rutgers!bellcore!tr 435 South St room 2L350 SOUNDNET: (201) 829-4622 [work] Morristown, NJ 07960 (201) 287-2345 [home]