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RBBS in a Box Volume 1 #3.1
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RBBSIABOX31.cdr
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dbase.bg1
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1983-10-26
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Version 2.4 of DBASE II has been out for about a month now
and it is just starting to get some heavy use as some
applications are being converted from previous versions.
During a conversion process, I came across a bug in the new
version which could be very frustrating if you don't know
what is happening.
If you use a text editor (I use PMATE) or word processor,
such as Wordstar, to create a DBASE command file (.PRG), you
will find that DBASE will not read the last, partially
filled sector of the file. It's own editor (MODIFY COMMAND)
writes out data 512 bytes at a time (even though you may
have entered only 10) so it doesn't have a problem reading
it back. Other editors generally write out a file that is
exactly the size of the data entered.
What this causes is the last portion of your command file to
be ignored and an implied RETURN to be executed. This can
cause all kinds of strange happenings in your programs
depending upon what is in the last 3 or 4 lines of code. It
is definitely a problem for people taking the command files
from an older version of DBASE to this new version as the
programs will malfunction in a variety of ways, possibly
even not updating the database when you think it has.
The circumvention for the problem is to place a bunch of
blank comment lines (lines beginning with an * and followed
by a lot of blanks) to pad out the command file. This
causes the command file to span another sector, which DBASE
will fail to read, but that is OK as it only has the blank
lines in it.
I contacted Ashton-Tate who said they were aware of the
problem and recommended the above procedure to eliminate the
error.
Gene Plantz Sysop, Chicago IBMPC BBS 312/882-4227 STG476