ARCHIVE SERIES PART 15 : ENTERING QUERY – A PROGRAM TO INTERROGATE ANY ARCHIVE DATABASE
The program (collection of procedures) listed below when merged with the procedures we have entered up until now gives us a useful program that can define and execute complex searches in any ARCHIVE database using simple menus. It allows us to not only find records by the occurrence of text within a record but also by the fields of a record meeting specified criteria. For instance we could query the GAZET_DBF supplied with ARCHIVE for all countries with high population densities which we might define from menus as (area/pop)<5. We can view and print out the results of each query. Besides being a fun program to play with it provides us with ARCHIVE statement building procedures which will be very handy for later programs.
In this issue of UPDATE you will find a review of my financial program QLerk by Hugh Howie. He kindly agreed to be one of my Beta testers and put together his experiences in the review. As he mentions it is a comprehensive program and not for the casual user. Financial programs are like that as you can’t half do them. They depend on a consistent and steady supply of information and are of little use if not so used. QLerk has changed very little in the past 8 months since it has been released (on a very low key basis) as it has proved to be very dependable. Unfortunately I haven’t completed a comprehensive manual yet. It is currently almost 50 pages but should be close to 100 when it covers all features in detail. I am now working hard on the manual after hardly touching it since the Miracle in Newport Fest because of other commitments. If you are interested in the program please contact me. I am selling it for $75. For the time being until more detailed reviews and advertisements are available I am willing to let potential users inspect the program before purchasing it. I have no desire to sell it to people who won’t use it but I have to protect my very large investment of time in its development and future support for the very small potential QL market.
PREPARATION
Start ARCHIVE in your customary way so you see the ARCHIVE command prompt (>). Load the group of procedures entered last time and saved in a file called “group3”. Start the editor and first modify “by_arrow” and “field_display” procedures that have small changes and then enter the new procedures. I have removed indentions in order to make the listing fit compactly in this listing. Save this old and new work in a file called “query”. To run first load “query” and type “query” to start.
Sorry that there is no detailed documentation within most of these procedures but time and space prohibit it. The Cable ARCHIVE Issue Disk has been updated to include the group1, group2, group3, and query programs covered in UPDATE plus matcher, replace, and windex procedures covered in IQLR. Next time another useful ARCHIVE program. Until then, Happy Archiving!