<quote who="Jeffrey Butera"> > On Monday 06 February 2006 09:51, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> > I wrote a small routine that will go through Savedlists, HOLD files, >> > ST.PPROCES records, etc. and selectively delete the records that are >> no >> > longer needed but I have been stopped by my VP. >> > >> > She wants justification for the process. I don't have the knowledge >> to >> > be able to give her what she wants. I've tried the following >> arguments >> > with no luck: >> > >> > Savedlists can be outdated as soon as they are created. >> > Taking up too much server room. >> >> Savedlists should never be re-used. By their very nature they are >> ephemeral. > > The above statement is application specific and not always true, > particularly > colleges running Unidata (Datatel). > > Yes, we do purge _HOLD_ and other things out but savedlists are generally > held. Many institutions (for research purposes) may used savedlists for > cohort tracking across many semesters or years. In these situations you > *cannot* recreate the savedlist everytime as you have to ensure the group > you > initially select is the same group used months/years later - savedlists > give > you an easy method to acheive this (whereas the various data fields you > may > query against are constantly changing). > > With the myraid of reports colleges need (both internal and federally > mandated > IPEDS, etc) savedlists provide an extremely useful tool.
This is a case of poor programming practice. With QSELECT, and the nature of the &SAVEDLISTS& file (similar in design to /tmp), any select list that needs to be re-used should NOT be kept in &SAVEDLISTS&. There should be another file created and used for this purpose. The 2 reasons for this are: 1. cleaning out &SAVEDLISTS& doesn't develop into a 'political' issue, and 2. The file used instead can be a hashed file, thus eliminating the headaches of having a directory holding large numbers of records, such as the need to tune the inode kernel parameter(s). My $0.02 (USD) Karl > -- > Jeff Butera, Ph.D. > Administrative Systems > Hampshire College > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > 413-559-5556 > > "Hindsight alone is not wisdom." > George W. Bush > ------- > u2-users mailing list > u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org > To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ > -- karl _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ ____________ __o _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ ____________ _-\<._ _/_/ _/ _/_/_/ (_)/ (_) _/ _/ _/ _/ ...................... _/ _/ arl _/_/_/ _/ earson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- IT Director, ATS Industrial Supply, Inc. http://www.atsindustrial.com Toll-free: 800-789-9300 x29 Direct2Desk: 801-978-4429 Facsimile: 801-972-3888 -- ------- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
