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SUPRTOOL Version 4.8.02 Database Handyman for the HP e3000 Change Notice Installation Instructions Addendum to 4.6 User Manual Suprtool 4.8.02 Dbedit 4.8.02 Suprlink 4.8.02 STExport 4.8.02 Speed Demon 4.8.02 Suprtool2 4.8.02 Robelle Solutions Technology Suite 372, 7360 137 Street Surrey, BC Canada V3W 1A3 Phone: (604) 501.2001 Fax: (604) 501.2003 E-mail: support@robelle.com Web: www.robelle.com April 2004 Program and Manual Copyright Robelle Solutions Technology Inc. 1981-2004 Permission is granted to reprint this document (but not for profit), provided that copyright notice is given. QEDIT and SUPRTOOL are trademarks of Robelle Solutions Technology Inc. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. Introducing Suprtool Version 4.8.02 * Highlights * Compatibility * CPU Serial Number and CPU Name * Documentation Suprtool provides fast access to your data on the HP e3000. With Suprtool, you can perform many necessary DP functions easily, with just a few simple commands. At Robelle we are constantly working on your enhancement requests so that we can include them when we release an updated version of Suprtool. This change notice provides you with links to detailed installation steps and a description of Suprtool's new features. Highlights in Version 4.8.02 * The information about the data loaded in a Table would be lost if the tabl being referenced was the second held table and the previous task involved a chai command. Highlights in Version 4.8 * The Clean command in Suprtool would incorrectly upshift lower case alpha characters. * The $edit function will now work when nested within other string functions Highlights in Version 4.7.12 * The $subtotal function has been re-written in order to use less resources and fix some bugs. Highlights in Version 4.7.11 * Suprtool now has a $findclean function to identify records with specific characters in it. * The $subtotal function would not work if the previous task used the Dup None Keys feature. * The $total function would appear to total data incorrectly when sorting on the field that was being totalled. * Variables that resolved to all spaces for the entire command line would not work. Highlights in Version 4.7.10 * Suprtool now allows up to 255 $split functions per task. * Numrecs 100% would come up with the wrong output file size when reading very large files. * Suprtool now has a $edit function for formatting data. * The new $split function would put random characters at the point where the split would occur in some cases. * The new $split function would incorrectly report an error in a second task with multiple $split operations. * The new $number function did not handle numbers that consisted of only a decimal place followed by any number of zeroes and a number, as in .01 thru .09. * Suprlink would abort if the Join file was empty. * Suprlink would hold the Join file open after the task was completed. * Suprtool would total incorrectly when using a $subtotal function. * Suprtool would write corrupt data at the end of each block if the record size of the input file and output file was greater than 10,000 bytes. Highlights in Version 4.7.02 * Suprtool would incorrectly report an error when using the $number function. * Suprlink and STExport would build the output file with an incorrect flimit. Compatibility Suprtool, Speed Demon, STExport, Suprcall and Suprlink are compatible with MPE/V, MPE XL, and MPE/iX, including MPE/iX 6.5, 7.0 and MPE/iX 7.5. Previously Suprtool would truncate a Table filename at 36 characters if the filename was greater than 36 characters and therefore would open a file if a file existed at the previous 36 character limit. The Table filename has been increased to 80 characters. If the Table filename exceeds 80 characters Suprtool will print an error. CPU Serial Number and CPU Name (HPSUSAN & HPCPUNAME) This program runs only on CPUs whose serial numbers have been encoded ("showvar hpsusan" on MPE/iX). This program may also be encoded with your HPCPUNAME values. If it fails to run and you get an "invalid HPCPUNAME" or "invalid HPSUSAN" error message, contact Robelle for assistance. Documentation The user manuals for Suprtool and its components are all available in the several popular formats such as PDF and HTMLHelp. You can also order hardcopy manuals from our printing service. All downloads and information is available in our library at: http://www.robelle.com/library/manuals/ The manuals are also included as help files within the Suprtool program and can be accessed by typing the help command: >help Installation of Suprtool Pre-Release If you received a production release tape from Robelle, then you can install using the instructions on this web page: http://www.robelle.com/support/install/tape/stprod.html If you downloaded the Suprtool production release from our web site then the instructions can be found here for the ftp download method: http://www.robelle.com/downloads/install-stprod-ftp.html and here for the WRQ download method: http://www.robelle.com/downloads/install-stprod-wrq.html Installation Assistance If you have any questions or run into any problems, please call us. Technical support is available on weekdays from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Pacific time. Technical support can also be obtained via e-mail at: support@robelle.com Enhancements in Version 4.7.12 We constantly provide Suprtool users with new features. The following section describes the new enhancements to Suprtool since the last major release. $Subtotal Function The $subtotal function has been re-written in order to use less resources. Enhancements in 4.7.11 This version of Suprtool has some significant enhancements and are listed below. $Findclean Function We recently added the $Clean function to primarily clean "bad" characters in text fields. This has been extremely popular enhancement but many wanted to do investigative work and try to figure out what records had these bad characters, to hopefully where the "bad" data was coming from. For this reason we have created the $FindClean function. $FindClean will return true if it finds a character defined using the Clean command. >in cleansd >clean "^9","^10" >if $findclean(nonprint) >list The above task will list the record if the field nonprint has a Tab (Decimal 9) or a Line Feed (Decimal 10) anywhere in the field. You can Find and clean the "bad" characters from a field at the same time: >in cleansd >clean "^9","^10" >if $findclean(nonprint) >extract nonprint=$clean(nonprint) >list Enhancements in Version 4.7.10 $Split Function Suprtool now allows up to 255 $split functions per task. The previous limit was 16, and the limit has been changed to assist in reading data from "PRN" files. $Edit Function Suprtool can format fields using edit-mask features similar to edit-mask features of Cobol. Suprtool employs two distinct types of edit-masks: one for byte type fields and the other for numeric fields. The type of mask utilized depends on the source type of the field. If the source field is numeric, then the numeric edit-mask logic is applied, if the source field is byte type, then the byte edit-mask logic and characters apply. The target field must always be a byte type field. Placeholders and Format Characters An edit-mask consists of "placeholder" characters, such as "9" for a numeric column, and "format" characters, such as "." for the decimal place. Sometimes an edit-mask character acts as both a placeholder and a format character, such as the "$" in floating dollar signs. Byte-Type Formatting For Byte type fields there are two placeholder characters. These are: X place the data in the matching column for the X in the edit-mask Z place the data in the matching column unless the data is a zero; if the data is a zero, then replace with a space The format characters are as follows: B (space) / (slash) , (comma) . (period) + (plus) - (minus) * (asterisk) and a Space. Please note that you can denote a space using two methods, either by putting a "B" in the mask or a space itself. For example, suppose you have data that is in ccyymmdd format in an X8 field. Here is how you would use a "xxxx/xx/xx" mask to format the data: >in mydate >form File: MYDATE.TEST.NEIL (SD Version B.00.00) Entry: Offset A X8 1 <CCYYMMDD> Limit: 10000 EOF: 2 Entry Length: 8 >def formatdate,1,10 >ext formatdate=$edit(a,"xxxx/xx/xx") >list >xeq >IN MYDATE.NEIL.GREEN (0) gt;OUT $NULL (0) FORMATDATE = 2003/09/24 >IN MYDATE.NEIL.GREEN (1) gt;OUT $NULL (1) FORMATDATE = 2003/09/24 As you see in the example above, the placeholder character is the "x" and the "/" is the format character. You insert a space either by specifying a "B" or by putting an actual Space character in the edit-mask. An example of inserting a space might be the formatting of Canadian postal codes (e.g., V3R 7K1): >in postal >form File: POSTAL.NEIL.GREEN Entry: Offset POSTAL-CODE X6 1 Limit: 10000 EOF: 2 Entry Length: 6 >def post1,1,7,byte >def post2,1,7,byte >ext post1=$edit(postal-code,"xxx xxx") >ext post2=$edit(postal-code,"xxxbxxx") >list >xeq >IN POSTAL.NEIL.GREEN (0) >OUT $NULL (0) POST1 = L2H 1L2 POST2 = L2H 1L2 >IN POSTAL.NEIL.GREEN (1) >OUT $NULL (1) POST1 = L2H 1L2 POST2 = L2H 1L2 Z-placeholder for byte-fields The Z-placeholder character works differently for byte-fields than for numeric fields. For byte type fields, if the Z placeholder and the corresponding data is "0", then the zero is suppressed, regardless of the position. This is primarily for suppression of zeroes in byte type date fields: ext a=$edit(date-field,"xxxx/zx/zx") The above edit mask would then edit a byte type date of 20031005, to be: 2003/10/ 5 Overflow and limits An edit mask is limited to 32 characters in total for both numeric and byte type fields. If data overflows the edit-mask, by default Suprtool will fill that field with asterisks. There is an option to have Suprtool stop when it encounters a formatting overflow: >set editstoperror on will force Suprtool to stop if there is data left over after applying the edit-mask. With byte-type fields, leading spaces do not cause overflow. Therefore if your data consists of: " L2H1L2" and your edit mask is: "xxxBxxx" It is not an overflow since there are only spaces to the left of the "L". If the data was: " JL2H1L2" an overflow exception would occur. Numeric field edit-masks Our edit-masks for numeric fields are patterned after those in COBOL. We provide four placeholder characters, each with a slightly different effect: "9" - insert a digit from 0 to 9 in this position "$" - if you specify more than one dollar sign, you get a floating dollar sig This means that there can be as many numeric positions as there are dollar signs, but if some positions are not needed because the value is small, the $ floats to the right next to the first digit and the preceding positions are blank. "*" - if there are enough digits in the value, the * position is replaced by a numeric digit; if not, an asterisk is printed. Leading asterisks are often used for check writing, so that no one can insert a different value. "z" - insert a numeric digit at this position; if the rest of the data to the left is a zero then a space will be placed at this position. For example: >ext a=$edit(int-field,"$$,$$$.99-") >ext b=$edit(int-field,"99,999.99-") >ext c=$edit(int-field,"cr99999.99") >ext d=$edit(int-field,"-$9999.99") >ext e=$edit(int-field,"**,***.99+") >ext f=$edit(int-field,"zz,zzz.99+") >list >xeq >IN FILE1SD.NEIL.GREEN (0) >OUT $NULL (0) A = $11.11- B = 00,011.11- C = CR00011.11 D = -$0011.11 E = ****11.11- F = 11.11- >IN FILE1SD.NEIL.GREEN (1) >OUT $NULL (1) A = $22.22- B = 00,022.22- C = CR00022.22 D = -$0022.22 E = ****22.22- F = 22.22- Signs As shown in the example above, there are also numerous format characters for numeric edits, including four ways to specify the sign. You can specify a sign, with +, -, or the typical accounting specification of "CR" and "DB". You will note in the example above that the "cr" in the mask was up-shifted to be "CR". This is because the entire mask is up-shifted as the mask is being parsed. You can specify more than one sign in a numeric field edit, although Suprtool will give you a warning that having two sign edit-mask characters does not reall make sense. Cobol gives a Questionable warning when compiling an edit-mask with characters. Suprtool, will apply the sign in both places. Keep in mind that most data has three states: 1) Postive 2) Negative 3) Neutral Any neutral data will not display the sign. If you specify a "+" sign in the edit-mask and the data is negative, it will of course display a "-" sign. Decimal Places For numeric-type edits, Suprtool attempts to adjust the data according to the number of decimal places in the edit-mask, when compared to the number of decimal places defined in the field. For example if the data field has one decimal place, and the edit mask has two decimal places, then the data is adjusted: Data and Edit mask: 102.3 ZZZZ.99 will result in the final data being: 102.30 Similarly, if the data has three decimal places and the edit-mask only has two, then the data will be rounded appropriately with the same rules as outlined in the $number function. You can specify more than one decimal place in an edit-mask. However, Suprtool will print a warning and it will utilize the right-most decimal place for data alignment. The decimal place character is defined by a set command: >set decimalsymbol "." If you define another character as the decimal symbol, Suprtool will use that character as the point to align the decimals. If you define a decimal symbol that is not an allowed edit-mask character with Set Decimalsymbol, Suprtool will assume that the field has zero decimal places and adjust the data accordingly. Currency and Dollar signs Suprtool edit-masks support both fixed and floating dollar signs. Logic for floating dollar-signs will be invoked if more than two dollar signs are defined in the edit-mask. A floating-dollar edit mask attempts to put the dollar sign at the left most position of the significant data. For example if you have the following data and edit mask: 0001234.54 $$$$$$.$$ the data would end up as: $1234.54 Suprtool will not however, put the dollar sign to the right of the decimal place. If you had the same edit mask and the data was, .09, the data would end up being formatted as: $.09 Similarily, the $edit function will attempt to place the dollar sign correctly in most cases. For example Suprtool will not format data in the form of: $,123.50 Suprtool, does attempt to fixup these cases and would format the data in the following manner: $123.50 Overflow and floating dollars If the number of digits in the data is equal to the number of placeholder dollar signs, then the dollar sign is dropped and not added to the edited field. 12345.50 $$$$$.99 would result in: 12345.50 Set CurrencySymbol If Set CurrencySymbol is not equal to "$", then after the formatting has been applied, whatever symbol(s) are defined within the set command, are used to replace the "$" symbol in the data. For example, if you have the Currency symbol set as "CDN". >set currencysymbol "CDN" Suprtool will replace the "$" after the edit-mask has been applied with CDN, provided there is room to the left of the dollar-sign. It is recommended that if you are using multiple characters for the dollar symbol that you leave enough characters to the left of the symbol. For example if the CurrencySymbol is defined as CDN, then you should leave two spaces to the left of a fixed dollar sign definition. If there is not enough room, to put in the currency symbol, then the dollar symbol is blank. Overflow and limits An edit mask is limited to 32 characters in total for both numeric and byte type fields. If data overflows the edit-mask, by default Suprtool will fill that field with asterisks. There is an option to have Suprtool stop when it encounters a formatting overflow: >set editstoperror on will force Suprtool to stop if there is data left over to place when applying the edit-mask. With numeric-type fields, leading zeroes do not cause overflow. Bugs Fixed in Version 4.8.02 Chain Command. The information about the data loaded in a Table would be lost if the table being referenced was the second held table and the previous task involved the Chain command. Bugs Fixed in Version 4.8 $Edit Function. The $edit function now returns a proper result when nested within another string function such as $ltrim. Clean Command. The clean command was improperly upshifting lower case alpha characters. Bugs Fixed in Version 4.7.12 $SubTotal Function. The $subtotal function would cause Suprtool to fail if the size of the Output buffer was larger than the record input. Bugs Fixed in Version 4.7.11 Variable Substitution. Suprtool would report the error: Error: >KEY has 2-4 parms: pos,len[,type][,DESC]. when resolving a variable that resolved to a blank line. This is now fixed in Suprtool 4.7.11. $Total Function. The $total function would appear to accumulate incorrectly when sorting in the same task. $SubTotal Function. The $subtotal function would not work if run in the same copy of Suprtool if the previous task used the Duplicate command. Bugs Fixed in Version 4.7.10 Incorrect Flimit. Suprtool would incorrectly calculate the flimit on an output file when using Numrecs 100%, and if the input file was very large. $Split generating random characters. The new $split function would put random characters at the point where the split would occur in some cases. $Split reported bogus error on repeated task. The new $split function would incorrectly report an error in a second task with multiple $split operations. $Number decimal only numbers incorrect. The new $number function did not handle numbers that consisted of only a decimal place followed by any number of zeroes and a number, as in .01 thru .0 Empty Join File caused abort. Suprlink would abort if the Join file was empty. Join File held open. Suprlink would hold the Output file open after the task was completed. $Subtotal incorrect. Suprtool would give incorrect numbers for a $subtotal function in certain cases. Data Corruption. Suprtool would write corrupt data at the end of each block if the record size of the input file and output file was greater than 10,000 bytes. Bugs Fixed in Version 4.7.02 Bogus Error with $number. Suprtool would incorrectly report an error when using the $number function in some cases. Incorrect Flimit on Output file. Suprlink and STExport would build the output file with an incorrect flimit. Bugs Fixed in Version 4.7.01 HPUX only. Suprtool 4.7.01 was only released on HP-UX. Enhancements in Version 4.7 $Number Function If and Extract Suprtool now has the ability to accept free-form "numbers" as display data types. This means number in the form: 1234.45- -12345 -123.2134 12343 can now be accepted and converted to any other numeric data type. Consider the following data: Item-number New-Price 12345 +123.45 34563 + 27.5 21312 + 1.545 Suprtool can now read and convert the data in New-Price using the number function. Let's say we want New-Price to be a double integer and currently occupies eight bytes starting in position six. Here is the task you would use to convert the New-Price free-format number into a double integer. >in mynums >def item-number,1,5,byte >def new-price-ascii,6,8,display >def new-price,1,4,double >item new-price-ascii,dec,2 >item new-price,dec,2 >ext item-number >ext new-price=$number(new-price-ascii) >out somefile,link >xeq The $number function take the free-format number and make it a valid display number. It will determine the decimal, sign and add leading zeroes. It will round the number to the defined number of decimal places. In the case of 1.545 number, Suprtool will round the value to be 1.55, since the given number of decimal places is two and the preceding value is five or greater. If you have a whole number such as 54, with no decimal point the value becomes 54.00. Suprtool will not accept data that has: More than one sign. More than one decimal place. Spaces in between numbers. Signs that are in between numbers. Characters that are not over punch characters. Fields that when edited do not fit in the defined space for the display field You can control the character that defines the currency, thousand and decimal symbol for other currencies and formats using the following commands: >set decimalsymbol "." >set thousandsymbol "," >set currencysymbol "$" Suprtool in the above case will strip the currency and thousand symbols and use the decimal symbol to determine the number of decimal places. You can set these characters to any values you want but the defaults for each are used in the above set commands. The Decimal and thousand symbols are only single characters. The currency symbol allows for four characters. Suprlink Many-to-Many Link Suprlink can now join files together that have multiple key records in each file, what has been come to be know as a many-to-many link. Suprlink has traditionally been able to link an Input file with many records with the same key to a Link file that has a single record with the same key value. The Join command, will now link two files with many key records in both the inpu and the "Linking" file. The syntax of the Join command is exactly the same as the Link command so a sample task would look as follows: +input ordhist +join orders +output custord +xeq The above task will link multiple records of the file ordhist, to the multiple records of the file in orders. This assumes that the files are sorted by a common key. In SQL terms this is known as an Inner Join. An Outer Join, one where the keys do not necessarily have a match can be achieved by adding the optional keyword to the Join command: +input ordhist +join orders optional +output joined +xeq In SQL parlance, once again you can achieve both a Left Outer Join and Right Outer Join by reversing the order of the files, between the input and the join commands. To give you an example of how the Join operation would work consider the following data. First we have an inventory file with multiple records for the same product-no. This data is stored in the file dinv: 50512001 {Rest of data} 50512001 {Rest of data} 50512003 {Rest of data} The next file will have sales records, once again with multiple key values, this data is stored in the file dsales: 50512001 {Rest of data} 50512001 {Rest of data} If you did the following task assuming both files are sorted by the product-no: +in dinv +join dsales +out invsales +xeq The resulting file would have four records, with the multiple matching dinv and dsales records. The record layout would have the dinv information first followed by the dsales information. If you add the optional keyword on the join command the resulting file would have 5 records. The matching 4 records from dinv and dsales as well as the dinv record that did not match with the numeric fields set to zero and the byte fields set to spaces. Only one Join operation is allowed per task. By default, Suprlink will join files base on the primary sorted key in the self-describing file. You can specify a secondary key for the files to be joined on in a similar manner to how the Link command did: +in orders +join dsales by order-no product-no +out ordsales +xeq Splitting Byte Fields Suprtool can extract portions of a byte field based on the occurrence of certain characters. Consider the following Data: Armstrong/ Neil/ Patrick Green/ Bob/ Miller Fritshaw/ Elizabeth/ Edwards/ Janine/ Armstrong/Arthur/Derek The $split function can extract each token into separate fields. The syntax for the $split function is: $split(Field,StartCharacter,Occurrence,EndCharacter,Occurrence) The following task will $split the data in the wholefield into three separate fields. >in namefile >define lastname,1,30 >define firstname,1,20 >define middlename,1,20 >extract lastname = $split(wholename,first,"/") >extract firstname=$trim($split(wholename,"/","/")) >extract middlename=$trim($split(wholename,"/",2," ",2)) >out names,link >xeq The first extract statement tells Suprtool extract the bytes from the field wholename, starting at the beginning (first keyword), and stopping at the "/" character. The second extract statement, tells Suprtool to extract the bytes between the first occurrence of the "/" character to the next occurrence of the "/" character, and then that string is trimmed of spaces as it is nested within the $trim function. The third and final extract statement tells Suprtool to extract the bytes beginning with the second occurrence of the "/" character to the second occurren of the space character. If the target field is not long enough to hold the data Suprtool will abort with an error. You can easily prevent this from happening on blank fields by nesting the $split statement within a $trim or $rtrim function. The $split function also has a Last keyword, whereby you can split the field from a given occurrence of a character to the end of the field. So in the given example from above the extracting out of the middlename could be coded as such: >extract middlename=$trim($split(wholename,"/",2,last)) The above means to extract out all the data from the second occurrence of the "/", to the end of the field and trim all spaces. Control Break Totals Suprtool now has the ability to keep a running subtotal for any numeric field based on a given sort key. The target data must be a packed field with 28 digits, in order to help avoid overflow issues. A sample use of the $subtotal function could be: >def mytotal,1,14,packed >get orders >sort order-number >ext order-number >ext part-number >ext description >ext sales-amount >ext mytotal = $subtotal(sales-amount,order-number) >out sales,link >xeq This would result in a file containing a running subtotal in the field mytotal f order-number. You could then generate a simple report with the simple Suprtool c >in sales >list standard >xeq The basic syntax for the $subtotal function in the extract command is: extract targetfield = $subtotal(field,sort-field) You must specify the sort command before referencing the sort-field in the $subtotal function. You can subtotal up to ten fields per pass and the $subtotal function is also available in the if command, however, is of limited use. Clean Command Syntax The Clean command has improved syntax to specify which characters to look to replace. You can specify special characters Decimal 0 thru Decimal 31 via the command: Clean special You can also specify a range or characters by using the following syntax: Clean "^0:^31","^240:^255" This enhancement makes it much easier to define characters to search for and Clean in both Suprtool and STExport. Outcount and Fullcount For years Suprtool has had a jcw and a variable to communicate how many records have been selected. The SuprtoolOutCount JCW and SuprtoolFullCount Variable, are set at the end of each task with how many records have been selected. Suprlink and STExport now have their own variables and jcw's. They are: SUPRLINKOUTCOUNT SUPRLINKFULLCOUNT STEXPORTOUTCOUNT STEXPORTFULLCOUNT On MPE/ix, it is recommended that you use the Fullcount variables when checking the number or records. Cleaning your Data In this day and age of migrations we were looking at issues that customers have run into when importing data into new databases. What came from this investigation where ways to Clean up your data in any given byte type field. We have added two methods to clean your data, you can use Suprtool to clean an individual byte type field, or STExport to clean all of the byte-type fields for a given file that you are exporting. Suprtool Sometimes un-printable or extraneous characters get stored in files or databases that have no business being there. This may be some tab characters in an address field or perhaps and embedded carriage return or line-feed. Suprtool now supports the clean function which will replace individual characters for a given byte field. There are three things that Suprtool needs to know in order to "clean" a field. Suprtool needs to know which characters it needs to clean, what character it needs to change the "bad" characters to, and also what field does it need to clean. Defining a Clean Character The Clean command is used to tell Suprtool what characters it needs to look for in a given byte type field. For example: clean "^9","^10","." will tell Suprtool to replace the tab character (Decimal 9), Line Feed (Decimal 10), and a period to whatever the Clean character is set to. The CLean command takes both, decimal notation and the character itself, however, it is probably most convenient to use the Decimal notation for the characters that you wish to clean. The Decimal notation is indicated by the "^" character. Setting the Clean Character By default, Suprtool will replace any of the characters specified in the clean command with a space. You can specify what character to use to replace any of the characters that qualify with the following set command: >set CleanChar "." This will set the character to replace any of the qualifying "to be cleaned" characters to be a period. Cleaning a Field You call the clean function, the same way you normally use other functions available to if and extract. For example: ext address1=$clean(address1) shows how to clean the field address1. You do not necessarily need to have the target field be the same as the source field. def new-address,1,30 ext new-address=$clean(address1) Cleaning your data An example of how easy it would be to clean your database of certain "bad" characters in byte-type fields would be as follows: >base mydb,1,; >get customer >clean "^9","^10","^0","^7" >set cleanchar " " >update >ext address(1) = $clean(address(1)) >ext address(2) = $clean(address(2)) >ext address(3) = $clean(address(3)) >xeq The above task will look at the three instances of address and replace the tab, linefeed, null and bell characters with a space. STExport This same feature has been added to STExport, except that STExport will automati clean all the byte type fields for a given SD file. The commands are very simila STExport just needs to know what the replace character should be and what charac needs to look for. $ in mysdfile $clean "^9","^10","^0","^7" $set cleanchar " " $out myexport $xeq Since the Cleanchar is by default set to space, the above task could simply be: $in mysdfile $clean "^9","^10","^0","^7" $out myexport $xeq Escape Command Many SQL importers allow you to add an escape character in front of characters that may mean something else to the import program. For example if the import program thinks that the delimiter character is a comma, the importer may treat a comma in an address field as an indication to move to the next field, which will throw of the import. Some import programs, will treat the next character as data as opposed to a delimeter if the character is preceded by an escape character, such as a slash. Thus when the field is analyzed by STExport the data that originally started as: "Niagara Falls,Ontario, Canada" would be transformed to be: "Niagara Falls/,Ontario/, Canada" This function will not work on fixed columns and can be invoked with the escape command: escape delimeter quote eol "/" The above command will take the defined delimeter, quote and Eol and escape with a "/", if found in any byte type field. Table Command Filename Previously the permitted length for the filename for the Table command was 36 characters. This has been increased to 80 characters. Running Totals Suprtool now has the ability to keep a running total for any numeric field. The target data must be a packed field with 28 digits, in order to help avoid overflow issues. A sample use of the total function could be: >def mytotal,1,14,packed >get orders >ext mytotal = $total(sales-amount) >xeq You can total up to ten fields per pass and the $total function is also available in the if command, however, is of limited use. $Counter Function For years Suprtool has had the ability to output a record number to an output file with the num option of the output command: >in mysdfile >out myfile,num,data The above could would generate an output file called myfile, however, you would the SD information and you can only put the number at the beginning or the end o data. Suprtool now has a counter function that allows you to place a $counter at spot as well as preserve the SD information. >in mysdfile >def mycount,1,4,double >ext field1 >ext field2 >ext mycount=$counter >out myfile,link >xeq The file myfile will be self-describing and contain the fields field1, field2 an mycount. The field mycount is defined as a double integer, since this is the onl field type that the $counter function can use. Each record will have a unique ascending number starting with one.