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What's Up, DOCumentation?
Robelle Consulting Ltd.
Unit 201, 15399-102A Ave.
Surrey, B.C. Canada V3R 7K1
Toll-free: 1-888-ROBELLE
(1-888-762-3553)
Phone: (604) 582-1700
Fax: (604) 582-1799
E-mail: support@robelle.com
Web: www.robelle.com
Date: February 1997
From: Robert M. Green, CEO
David J. Greer, President
Hans Hendriks, Editor pro tem
To: Users of Robelle Software
Re: News of the HP 3000 and of HP-UX, 1997 #1
What You Will Find in This News Memo:
Robelle's 20th Anniversary
WinQedit News Update
Qedit 4.5 Released
Dual Booting MS Windows
Robelle-L Internet Discussion Forum
About Robelle
Robelle Products: Problems, Solutions and Suggestions
Robelle Celebrates 20th Anniversary 1977-1997
=============================================
Looking back twenty years, to when Robelle was founded, I can see a lot of
changes, and yet many things have stayed the same. Just as now, we were
worried about the new release of MPE, about the performance of our
information systems, about the quality of the software we write (Does it
have too many bugs? Does it do what the users want?). But unlike then, we
now have to worry about UNIX, Windows NT, PC networks, the Internet, and
dozens of other technical topics. The work environment of today's computer
person is certainly more complex than it used to be.
In 1977 I was working at Robelle on the first version of Qedit, a fast text
editor designed to make programming possible on a busy production HP 3000.
I hoped to sell (actually rent out) 20 or so copies of Qedit for a few
years until HP got around to writing a decent editor. To give Robelle
another source of revenue, I wrote Suprtool for a consulting client with a
large database that was taking too long to sort (250,000 customer records
was large for an HP 3000 at that time).
In the years that followed, the Robelle staff grew with the customer base
and we wrote a number of other software products. But Qedit and Suprtool,
the original products, remained the bedrock of Robelle. As long as they
kept up with the times, so would Robelle.
Now Suprtool and Qedit work on UNIX; Suprtool can handle Oracle and Allbase
databases; and Qedit is about to don new client/server clothing.
Everyone at Robelle wants to thank all of you for your support over these
twenty years. We look to the future with anticipation- the challenges never
end.
[Bob Green, Founder and CEO]
WinQedit News Update
====================
When Will WinQedit be Available?
WinQedit, Robelle's new client/server version of Qedit, is nearing
completion. The release date is set for the second quarter of 1997. The
development team is working hard to ensure WinQedit embodies Robelle's high
standards of quality.
Introductory Price Special
A special introductory price for WinQedit will be offered to all Qedit
customers currently on support. We will be contacting these customers when
the details become available.
Sneak Preview: A Few WinQedit Highlights
- Familiar MS Windows graphical interface lets you edit MPE, HP-UX, and
local files at the same time.
- Multiple Windows let you quickly switch between files, or get multiple
views of the same file (for example, WinQedit can show global variables and
procedural code at the same time).
- Smart caching eliminates the need to load the entire file before you
start editing. As a result, WinQedit is suitable for editing huge data
extracts and datacomm traces, whether local or remote. WinQedit is also
fast over a modem.
- Cut and paste on a host system, between host systems, into local
documents, or other Windows applications (e.g., MS Word).
- Full login security for your host (including Security/3000), but
convenient password specification for your users. Also works with HP-UX
security, including shadow passwords.
Stay tuned for more news on WinQedit throughout 1997.
Qedit 4.5 Released
==================
Qedit version 4.5 has just been shipped to all users on support. This
newest version of our fast and flexible, full-screen editor on HP-UX and HP
3000 includes some significant enhancements, along with continuing
compatibility with the latest versions of the HP-UX and MPE operating
systems.
Qedit/UX and Qedit/3000
Some enhancements are common to both the HP-UX and HP 3000 versions of
Qedit. These include more flexibility in working with include and use
files, nested files that are invoked by the Use command located in each
file. If a file contains a Use filename command, List $use string filename
can easily search for a string in both the specified file as well as its
use files. This is useful for PowerHouse source files, as well as Qedit and
Suprtool command files.
It is now also possible to specify the name of a printer as part of the
List command, for easier use in multiple-printer environments.
Qedit/UX
For many years, Qedit has used HP Block mode for its Visual mode screen.
This is efficient in terms of network resources, but restrictive in terms
of functionality, and the terminals and emulators it will run on. Qedit 4.5
now includes a completely new option for full-screen editing on
character-mode VT terminals: Screen mode.
Screen mode works with most VT terminals (such as VT100 and VT220) and
emulators. As this is a character-mode interface, it allows users to edit
using more PC-like keystrokes (arrow keys to scroll, page up/down keys,
etc.) Another enhancement to Qedit/UX 4.5 is the ability to print to an
HP-UX device or an attached printer
Qedit/3000
Qedit continues to improve its compatibility with the latest changes in
MPE/iX 5.5. Qedit now runs command files and UDCs that have only execute
(X) access, supports command files that use the full POSIX naming
standards, supports POSIX directories in the hppath variable, and
recognizes "#" as a comment character in command files.
Dual Booting MS Windows
=======================
While I like to use Windows NT 4.0, not all software is compatible with it.
I resolved this issue by setting up my machine to dual boot Windows 95 and
Windows NT 4.0, even though dual booting requires lots of disk space.
To set up a dual boot machine when you install MS Windows, choose different
directories for Windows 95 and Windows NT. At boot time, you will be asked
to select which operating system you want to run. You will not be able to
use any disk compression software because Windows 95 cannot read NTFS
partitions and Windows NT cannot read compressed FAT partitions.
One irritating problem of dual booting is that applications must be
installed twice: once under Windows 95 and again under Windows NT. The
reasons for this are:
1. Most applications now use the registry. The registry is different in
Windows 95 and Windows NT. Note that some programs create their registry
entries the first time they run.
2. To create the short-cut folder for the application. If there are more
than one or two short-cuts, it becomes very tedious to create them by hand.
I find it easier to just reinstall the application.
3. There may be specific DLLs that are OS-specific. Even if they are not
OS-specific, two sets of DLLs are installed because the directories for
Windows 95 and Windows NT are different (another reason to have a lot of
disk space).
Although most applications do run well under Windows NT 4.0, there are
still instances where I need to switch between the two flavors of Windows.
Often, however, it is not obvious whether I'm in Windows 95 or Windows NT
4.0. [David Greer]
Suprtool Training Schedule
==========================
Need some help using Suprtool? Why not attend a Suprtool training class? W
offer two options. We can bring the course to you, or you can come to our
office just outside Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
The objective of this two-day course is to help you understand Suprtool's
basic commands, their variations and syntax. You will learn how to prepare
data for importing into other databases or applications on almost any
platform with the new STExport feature, to speed up applications and
reports, and much more.
Here is our course schedule for upcoming classes at Robelle:
February 20 - 21
May 22 - 23
August 7 - 8
December 4 - 5
For more information about the schedule or to arrange a private session at
your site, call Rosemary Van Poelgeest or Nicky Gunther at 1-888-ROBELLE (1-
888-762-3553).
Robelle-L Internet Discussion Forum
===================================
In our last newsletter, we announced the availability of our Suprtool-L
discussion list to promote interaction between Suprtool users, and to
provide a forum for Robelle R&D to elicit feedback on design decisions.
After subsequent discussion and consultation with subscribers, we have
changed the name and charter of the group to ROBELLE-L, to invite and
include contributions from users of our Qedit product.
To subscribe to ROBELLE-L, send an e-mail message to LISTSERV@ROBELLE.COM
with SUBSCRIBE ROBELLE-L firstname lastname in the body of your e-mail. You
will receive a confirmation by return e-mail, explaining how to configure
the list server, post messages, and unsubscribe. Incidentally, this is a
free service, despite the terminology.
About Robelle
-------------
New Look for What's Up DOCumentation?
=====================================
As you have likely already noticed, this edition of Robelle's popular
technical newsletter has a new look. The tree background on the cover page
is a familiar sight to all Robelle employees in western Canada. The
photograph was taken in a forest near Vancouver, British Columbia. We hope
you enjoy the new look and a little bit of our local scenery when you read
your newsletters.
Welcome Fran Glasgow
====================
Fran Glasgow started working part-time at Robelle in October 1996,
assisting in the Sales department. Fran is responsible for packaging and
mailing trial requests, information requests, and updating customer
information. Fran also answers the phones at busy times, so you may have
the opportunity to say hello to her the next time you call Robelle. Before
joining Robelle, Fran operated her own florist business for several years.
Fran is also a busy mother of two, enjoys gardening, league bowling, music
and cooking.
Robelle's Ambassador to Quebec
==============================
After living almost five years in the Vancouver area, Francois Desrochers,
wife Julie and son Guillaume have gone back to their roots. On December 7,
they moved to a new house in Blainville, a small town on the north shore of
Montreal, Quebec. Francois still works in Technical Support part-time,
applying the balance of his working hours to Qedit R&D.
Robelle Hours
=============
Robelle's regular office hours are 7 a.m. - 4 p.m. PST, Monday to Friday.
If you call our office outside these hours, you are automatically forwarded
to our answering service, where you can leave a message for us to get back
to you when the office reopens.
In cases where you require urgent technical assistance, you can ask the
operator to page our on-call techie.
Things That Make You Go "Hmmmm"
===============================
Now that we have had our Web site up for about a year, we are averaging
over 1,000 hits a day. This average would be higher if the weekend traffic
(600 to 700 hits per day) didn't decrease the overall average.
Interestingly enough, of the 7,314 hits in the last week, there were only
2,585 new visitors. This means that just under 5,000 hits were repeat
visitors. What is bringing these 5,000 people back time and again to visit
our Web site? As we have very little in the way of flashy graphics, it must
be the content.
Our Web pages have something for everyone. You can glean hard-sought
information from our on-line HP 3000 encyclopedia, the Smug Book; dig up
little-known facts about our products from the FAQ lists; check out our HP
3000 links; and even find out what is happening @ Bob's Anguilla hideaway.
If you would like to see the face behind the voice that you have been
chatting with on the telephone, check out the photos in our company
brochure. Sending e-mail to Robelle is a mouse-click away from practically
any of our Web pages.
We have now added RealAudio to some of our papers on the Web. This
multimedia form of the papers synchronizes the commentary of each speaker
with his slide presentation. If you missed attending the original
presentations in person, this is the next-best thing. In fact, it may even
be better because if you surf from your home, you can attend our
presentations in your pajamas and bunny slippers.
Want To See Something New Each Time You Visit Our Web Site? Set your
Robelle bookmark to www.robelle.com/cgi-bin/random_smugpage.pl. This
"randomizer" brings you a different article in the Smug Book every time you
visit our site. [Ken Robertson]
Robelle Products: Problems, Solutions and Suggestions
-----------------------------------------------------
stexport adds flexibility to output,ascii
=========================================
Have you ever noticed how Suprtool's Output,ASCII command does not let you
control the format of the output? There is a way to get around this
restriction, now that STExport is available.
When Suprtool formats numbers for Output,ASCII, it follows a simple rule:
it right-justifies the number in a field that is big enough to hold the
field's largest possible value, and it appends a trailing sign. For
example, a J2 binary number with a value of 1,000 will be output as
^^^^^^1000^, and a minus 1,000 will be output as ^^^^^^1000- (where ^
represents a space). The number is always right-justified with leading
spaces, and the sign is always trailing.
STExport gives you more control. The Sign command specifies the position of
the sign, and the Zero command specifies whether a field is filled with
zeros. Suprtool still determines the size of the output field based on the
data-type of the input field.
Example: You want to produce the same effect as Output,ASCII, except that
you want the numbers to have leading zeros instead of leading spaces.
Suprtool's Output,ASCII for the J1 and J2 fields looks like this:
> output myfile,ascii 10020 19951004 22415
> xeq 10003 19951016 11207
10003 19951016 16600-
10003 19951016 21910
10016 19951020 8411
10016 19951020 15942
10020 19951028 16713-
10010 19951020 7970
In Suprtool, instead of Output,ASCII use Output,Link. Then format the
resulting link file with the following STExport commands:
>output foo,link,temp
>xeq
>export input foo 00010020 0019951004 0000022415
>export columns fixed 00010003 0019951016 0000011207
>export date none 00010003 0019951016 0000016600-
>export delimiter none 00010003 0019951016 0000021910
>export quote none 00010016 0019951020 0000008411
>export sign trailing 00010016 0019951020 0000015942
>export zero leading 00010020 0019951028 0000016713-
>export output myfile 00010010 0019951020 0000007970
>export xeq
Most of the STExport commands shown above are to override STExport's
default action of producing a variable-length, comma-delimited file that is
formatted for a PC program, such as Microsoft Access or Lotus 1-2-3. Zero
Leading is the command for filling numeric fields with leading zeros. The
space seen between the fields is really the trailing sign of the preceding
number. [Mike Shumko]
Suprtool and Concurrent Access
==============================
Suprtool gives either one of the following warning messages when it
completes the task of reading a dataset while other users are adding or
deleting records:
New entries were added to the dataset.
Suprtool may have ignored some dataset entries.
or
The number of dataset entries was reduced.
Suprtool may have included some deleted dataset entries.
Probably the best way to determine the seriousness of these warnings is to
understand how Suprtool reads the datasets. The logic is different for
masters and details.
Master Datasets:
Suprtool has no way of knowing how entries are distributed in a master
dataset. As it would be inefficient to read to the capacity of the dataset
when all the entries are clustered near the beginning, Suprtool first gets
the entry count for the set, adds 100 to that number, then reads serially
until that number of records has been read. It then checks the entry count
again, and if the entry count has changed, Suprtool returns one of the
warning messages shown above.
So it is possible for Suprtool to miss new entries, if they were added
either to a location that Suprtool has already read or to the end of a file
when more than 100 entries have been added. It is also possible that
Suprtool might miss original entries near the end of the file, if more than
100 new entries have been added to locations that Suprtool has already
read, or if a deleted entry causes a migrating secondary entry to migrate
back to its primary location "over" Suprtool's read location. (This is true
of any application that does serial reads.)
If you want to force Suprtool to always read to the end of the file, use
Set Eofread On. This is good practice for master datasets because it
ensures that original entries are read, except possible migrating
secondaries. The only way to be absolutely sure that all entries are read
would be to disallow concurrent changes by specifying Mode-4 on the Base
command.
(This topic was incorrectly documented in the Suprtool documentation, under
the Set Eofread command. The next release of Suprtool, version 4.0, has been
changed to always read to EOF for Master Datasets, as documented.)
Detail Datasets:
Very old versions of Suprtool followed a similar logic for detail datasets,
in establishing an entry count prior to starting the serial read, and
stopping after that number of entries had been read. In version 3.3.2
(circa 1991), Suprtool's default was changed to always read to the
dataset's highwater mark. It still checks the entry count before and after
reading, and it returns the appropriate warning message if the count
changes because the task's output file may contain either records that were
subsequently deleted from the dataset or some entries that were added after
the commencement of the task. Also, if the dataset's highwater mark were
increased, the very newest entries would be missed. Again, Set Eofread On
would ensure that Suprtool does not stop prematurely, but could be
expensive in terms of performance for datasets with a large capacity and
small entry count. [Hans Hendriks]
Suprtool and Year 2000
======================
We were recently approached by Kriss Rant, Marketing Manager for CSY
(Hewlett Packard's HP 3000 Division), to submit an entry for the white
paper they are preparing on Y2K issues. This is what we submitted:
"Robelle has been actively working to provide solutions for year 2000
problems associated with processing and converting data in databases and
files. Recent enhancements to Suprtool, our high-speed database and file
extract tool, offer these important year 2000 solutions:
1. Conversion of dates without a century in databases, KSAM files, and data
files to a date format with a century component.
2. Support has been added for the MM/3000 date format. This format allows
users to continue using an X6 field to store dates and still collate them
correctly after January 1, 2000.
3. Suprtool can now identify and fix any invalid dates, whether they are in
this century or not.
4. The new Set Date Cutoff and Set Forcecentury features allow users to
control how Suprtool interprets dates without a century component (or force
users to always specify a century). This is a common problem that all
programs will have to cope with.
The HP 3000 is well positioned to support applications into the next
millennium. By providing additional support to its users and their
applications, Suprtool will help make this transition as smooth as
possible."
Use Qedit/UX for Re-executing Shell Commands
============================================
The POSIX and Korn shells both have a command history feature. By default,
the file .sh_history in the user's home directory ($home) contains the last
128 commands used. You can override the default history filename by setting
the HISTFILE environment variable (e.g., export HISTFILE="MyHistory"). You
can also change the number of commands in the history file by setting the
HISTSIZE variable (e.g., export HISTSIZE=250). The command history file can
be shared by multiple users, so you can access someone else's commands. You
can even see the commands you used yesterday because the content of the file
is saved between sessions.
You can use the built in fc command list to edit and execute one or more
commands from the history file. The general syntax is:
fc [-e editor] [-nlr] [first [last]]
fc -e - [in-line edit] [command reference]
fc Without any arguments, this command returns the most recent command in
the history file, which you can edit, and executes the modified command
when you exit the editor.
-l Lists the command(s) specified in command reference. If there is no
command reference argument, it lists the last 16 commands.
-e Combined with the in-line edit argument, this argument allows you to
perform a simple string replacement in the specified command.
- This option indicates that no interactive editing is required and that
the command will be executed immediately. It can be used in conjunction
with -e to change a string before execution.
[command reference] can be a single command line number (e.g., fc 100).
Used with -l, fc lists all the commands starting from the specified
number to the most recent command. Used with other options, fc performs
the specified operation on that one line. This option can also use the
start and end numbers in the command history (e.g., fc 100 105), in
which case the operation will be performed on all lines between the
specified numbers. This option can also use a string of one or more
characters (e.g., fc c) to return the most recent command that starts
with the specified string.
[in-line edit] performs a simple string replacement when combined with
the -e option. The syntax is old=new. The fc command replaces the first
occurrence of old with new.
To edit commands, fc invokes the editor specified in the FCEDIT variable. If
this variable is not set, /bin/ed is used. To use Qedit/UX instead, enter
export FCEDIT='qedit "-c m@;k,yes;e" '
During an edit operation, the requested lines are put in a temporary file.
This file is then passed to Qedit. After editing the lines, you should save
your changes before exiting Qedit, at which time the shell will execute the
modified commands.
Because the fc command is fairly simple, you can use it by itself. If you
want to assign specific names to each option, you can use aliases. Those
familiar with MPE will recognize the following:
alias listredo="fc -l"
alias redo="fc"
alias xeq="fc -e -" {"do" cannot be used because it is already}
{ a valid shell command}
From that point, you can use:
listredo {to list the last 16 commands entered}
redo 100 {to modify and execute command line number 100}
xeq cd {to execute the most recent command starting with cd}
Qedit/UX displays its banner every time you edit a command. Unfortunately,
there is no way to avoid this. You can further customize your Qedit/UX
environment by inserting Set commands in the FCEDIT variable, creating a
local .qeditmgr file or system-wide /usr/robelle/qeditmgr file. You could
then choose one of the three Qedit/UX Modify modes (Robelle, HP or
QZModify), or you can get into full-screen mode directly.
[Francois Desrochers]