Colin Jennings wrote:
> Don't know why without looking at the rest of the code, but some
> people prefer to build a comma-separated list and then change the
> commas to system delimiters rather than delimit with @VM in the first
> place.  Not wrong, but perhaps a bit unnecessary.  Does make the code
> easier to read I suppose. 

(I know this is all real fundamental for many people here, but I hope it
helps some beginners.)

I do that a lot with commas or spaces.  Sometimes it's not practical to
create a separate item which must be read to provide the static data. When
there is a need to build an array (especially those with more than just a
few attributes and/or values) it does't make sense to me to have many lines
like this:
  INFO = 'NAME'
  INFO<1,-1> = 'TELEPHONE'
  INFO<1,-1> = 'ADDRESS'
when it can be summarized into:
  INFO = 'NAME TELEPHONE ADDRESS'
  CONVERT ' ' TO @VM IN INFO
Text wrapping in editors makes the info readable, and we don't need to
hard-code attributes (see the original post) or values which may require
modification later.  When the data does not include spaces, I prefer spaces
as a delimiter to induce text wrapping in the code, compared to commas
which will cause weird breaking depending on which editor is used.  The
code can also be broken down for printing or Emailing as follows:
  BLOCK = 'NAME TELEPHONE EMAIL FAX'
  BLOCK := ' ADDR1 ADDR2 CITY PROVINCE COUNTRY ...'
  INFO<-1> = BLOCK

The code posted by the OP has a problem:
> SELECT.LIST<1> = 'NAME, TELEPHONE, ADDRESS'
> SELECT.LIST<2> = 'NAME, TELEPHONE, CITY'
> SELECT.LIST<3> = 'NAME, TELEPHONE, OFFICE'
> CONVERT ',' TO @VM IN SELECT.LIST
> SELECT.CNT = DCOUNT( SELECT.LIST<1>, @VM )

That results in embedded leading spaces in the data.  Maybe this was just
an example.  I use commas OR spaces, rarely both, and then the final
dynamic array needs to be TRIMmed.



T
-------
u2-users mailing list
u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org
To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/

Reply via email to