progress to filepro

[Jeff Harrison]

----- Original Message ----

> From: Fairlight <fairlite at fairlite.com>
> To: filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
> Sent: Fri, February 18, 2011 3:17:52 PM
> Subject: Re: progress to filepro
> 
> Yo, homey, in case you don' be listenin', Jeff Harrison done said:
> > I am  not aware of anything that does this.  It should be possible to
> >  write a utility for this in filepro though.  The first step in  creating
> > the file in filepro would be to create a valid map.  I  would create a
> > "blank" map by calling ddefine and redirecting the  appropriate keystrokes
> > to it.  Then, using scripting (or filepro's  file IO ) update the map,
> > adding the appropriate line for each  field.  Make sure you keep the
> > password and checksum characters  intact on the first map line.  Also,
> > make sure you adjust the  #characters in the key/data and # fields in the
> > key in the map header  appropriately.
> 
> As I was trying to point out, though...  By the time  you write that code,
> DEBUG that code so that nothing will go awry during  transfer, and get
> everything set up, it's more than likely that one would  have been able to
> do the conversion manually in less time than going through  all those
> convolutions, unless there were 100+ tables or something.   Even
> then...with differences in edit types and such, exceptions to rules,  etc.,
> I'm seeing it as a safer and cheaper bet to just do it manually than  waste
> time and money automating it.
> 
> mark->

Yes, this would only be worthwhile for very large numbers of tables/fields, and 
yes, It would be easier to approach this for just a limited number of edit types 
- and other fixed rules.  For example, bring everything through as text (*) - or 
possibly add logic to convert to a floating point type for numbers as well.

Probably not worth the trouble, but I just thought I would point out that it is 
a possibility - and let Enrique judge for himself.

You said, "As I was trying to point out, though...".  I guess I missed your post 
on this.

Jeff Harrison
jeffaharrison at yahoo.com
Author of JHExport and JHImport