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Re: Datatrieve documentation.

 
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The Brit
Honored Contributor

Datatrieve documentation.

Hi guys,
I'm looking for some clarification (if it exists).

I am running Datatrieve 7.3 on OpenVMS 8.3-1H1 (I64 blades). One of my guys is looking to improve some of the scripts that are being run, which are very old (?), and was looking to get some recent documentation relating to any new features that may exist in 7.3 compared to the old docs which were extant when these old procedures were written.

I didnt think this would be much of a problem so I went first to the web. I found a set of documentation at;

http://h30266.www3.hp.com/odl/i64lp/databases/dtr073/datrieve.htm

...looked good!... until I opened the new features and found it was dated 1993 and refered to Version 6.1.

next I dug out the documentation cd. The CD I got my hands on was for Integrity servers and was dated May 2008.

I found "Datatrieve for I64" - ...and discovered it was the same set of documentation (same date (1993), same version (6.1), etc)

Since I64 was not an option is 1993, and since the CD is clearly marked 2008, should I conclude that this is the most recent version of documentation for Datatrieve, and (by implication at least), there have been no "New Features" between version 6.1 and 7.3 ?? (in which case, why even bother with the new version number???

I would appreciate if anyone can shed light on this.

Thanks

Dave.
5 REPLIES 5
Hein van den Heuvel
Honored Contributor
Solution

Re: Datatrieve documentation.



Hello Dave,

Datatrieve is still Same old same old.

I typically used the 1996 7.1 manual from:

http://odl.sysworks.biz/swadm_dat_root/axpdocjun04/dtraxp72a.html

And the 2004 - 7.3 release notes in SYS$HELP

We had a minor incompatibility with RDB missing value formatting. Could override with SET NULL or something along those lines for text, but not number. I'd have to look up the details.


My main tool for improving scripts (other the just being smart :-), is to start datatrieve with the /DEBU switch. After that it will report which (RMS Indexed File) Keys it uses (or not) for file access.

Hope this helps some,
Hein.
The Brit
Honored Contributor

Re: Datatrieve documentation.

Thanks for the info Hein,

Tell me, is there a smart way to get this stuff to print (other than link-by-link??

Dave.
Shriniketan Bhagwat
Trusted Contributor
Hein van den Heuvel
Honored Contributor

Re: Datatrieve documentation.

hein>> We had a minor incompatibility with RDB missing value formatting. Could override with SET NULL or something along those lines for text, but not number. I'd have to look up the details. <<

Months later there is a little twist to this story of possibly incompatibility for the I64 port.
An other alleged problem with missing values was observed.
This time using a choice value-expression.
A value 'N' would appear seemingly from a 'bad' choice.
But it really was the "N" from the word "NULL".
So I recreated an Alpha environment which also reported an "N" contrary to original Alpha environment.
Hmmm...
Long story short: 15 some years ago the Datatrieve image on the Alpha had been patched replacing the string "NULL" with spaces and folks had forgotten about that.
So any re-install, Alpha or Itanium would have changed behaviour, and SET NO NULLS only fixed it enough to create more confusion.

There is a lesson in here somewhere! (or a bootcamp war story :-)

Ignoring that lesson, I patched the Itanium image and the customer is happy again.
In my defense I did name the image DTRSHR_PATCHED_NO_NULL.EXE and use it through a system logical DTRSHR in a feeble attempt to warn a future support person.

Hein
The Brit
Honored Contributor

Re: Datatrieve documentation.

Thanks for the update Hein.

Dave.