Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!its63b!dougie
From: dougie@its63b.ed.ac.uk (Dougie Nisbet)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: dBASE III Plus questions
Message-ID: <1382@its63b.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 27 May 88 11:11:00 GMT
Reply-To: dougie@its63b.ed.ac.uk (Dougie Nisbet)
Organization: Medical Statistics Unit, University of Edinburgh
Lines: 41


A couple of queries; can anyone help or advise?

1	The SET MEMOWIDTH command allows the default memo width field
	output to be altered. The default for this is 50 characters.
	My problem is when *entering* data - I want to disable the 
	'wrap-around' feature of the default dbase editor, which is 
	called whenever one edits/creates a memo entry.

	I'm aware that it is possible to tell dBASE to use a different
	editor, but I want to avoid this because the application should
	be available to anyone who has a PC & dBASE III Plus - the 
	addition of another editor would be asking the client to buy
	too much. (I thought of using Micro Emacs - since it is public
	domain, but did not consider it friendly enough. Perhaps 
	someone can suggest a super friendly Public Domain editor?)

	So, is there any way in which I can increase the margins which
	the default dBASE editor uses, or, better still, disable the
	wrap around completely?

2	A recurring problem I have, which is presumably experienced by
	others, is differentiating between BLANK or MISSING numeric data,
	and the valid possibility of the data being zero. dBASE seems to 
	be a bit inconsistent in the way it displays this type of data.
	i.e. It is possible to Append records to a file, and press
	<return> on numeric data fields, leaving the fields (apparently)
	blank. Typing LIST later, also seems to suggest that the fields 
	are blank, but typing LIST FIELDNAME (where FIELDNAME is a 
	numeric field), displays zero's (0's) for records which had
	previously appeared blank with a simple LIST command.
	Also, typing LIST FOR FIELDNAME = 0 will display the records which
	have numeric fields which *appear* to be blank, although dBASE 
	obviously treats them as zero.

	How do people get around this problem? I know the most
	straighforward work-around is probably to use character fields - 
	but then you lose the automatic range checking facility which 
	is really useful.

Dougie