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- DBASE II EDITING TIPS
- by Beverly Howard, Kaypro Austin Club, May 1987
-
- (Using an external editor with dBASE II)
-
- When trying to write, edit and test dBase programs with your
- favorite word processor, the time losses due to typing in all of
- the commands exiting and entering almost (I said almost) make it
- worthwhile using the primitive "MODIFY COMMAND" editor. The
- dBase command "QUIT TO" can make exiting to edit easy. the
- following tips assume that you are working on a program named
- "TEST.CMD" and your word processor is named "PW.COM". First
- create and run a program named "WORK.CMD" containing the
- following lines.
-
- STORE "QUIT TO 'A:PW B:TEST.CMD','DBASE WORK'" TO QT DO TEST
-
- When you need to edit the program, type "&QT <CR>" at the dot
- prompt and dBase will terminate and call up PW.COM on drive A
- editing "B:TEST.CMD". After you have finished editing and quit
- PW.COM, the command "DBASE WORK <CR>" will automatically be
- executed and "WORK.CMD" will store the "QT" command and start
- "TEST.CMD". If you are really in a hurry, you could add the
- "QUIT TO" command to the end of "WORK.CMD" which would insert you
- back in PW.COM editing "TEST.CMD" immediately after "TEST" ends.
-
- Having a "WORK.CMD" program is a good idea in any case as you can
- store variables, set the date and drive, call .DBF files, run
- programs and do any other housekeeping you normally do when you
- start dBase. The "QUIT TO" command can be added to the end of
- your normal "WORK.CMD" file as needs dictate.