************************************* * * * DB/C Newsletter * * August 2000 * * * ************************************* News and Comments We are now beta testing DB/C DX 11. If things go well, DB/C DX 11 should go into production in early October. There has been some confusion about the cost of upgrading to DB/C DX 11 if you purchase DB/C DX 10 now. The answer is zero. All licenses of DB/C DX that have current support may be upgraded to new minor and major releases of DB/C DX at no cost. In the March 1999 DB/C Newsletter, we announced the new prices and support policies for DB/C DX, DB/C JX and DB/C FS. An issue that was not dealt with in that newsletter is the price of renewing support when the previous support has lapsed. The policy is that the cost of 12 months of support will be increased by 5% for each month that it has lapsed with a maximum increase of 100%. For example, the yearly support for a five user license of DB/C DX is $150. If support lapsed in July 2000 and is renewed in October 2000, then the price of one year of support is $165 ($150 + 10%) and the support will extend through the end of October 2001. We are initiating the creation of a Usenet newsgroup, comp.lang.plb, that will serve as a forum for discussion about the DATABUS programming language. The decision to create the newsgroup depends on a vote, taken by email, that must show overwhelming support for creation of that newsgroup. In a future newsletter will be providing information about how to vote. This month's article is three new Frequently Asked Questions. don.wills@dbcsoftware.com ***************************************************************************** DB/C Frequently Asked Questions Question: How do we create customized DB/C DX configuration file for each user? For ease of administration, we prefer to use a single DBCDX.CFG file that is shared by all users. In DB/C 9.1, we made the DBC_PORT and DBCVOL_W environment variables be different for each user. How do we accomplish the same thing in DB/C DX? Answer: The most common method for dealing with this issue is to create a start-up script (.bat or .cmd file in Win32) that appends the dynamic DX properties (like dbcdx.file.vol.W and dbcdx.clock.port) to the static DBCDX.CFG file. If each user has a unique work directory that is the current directory, the resulting file would be copied into the work directory with the name DBCDX.CFG and the DB/C runtime would be started with that directory as the current directory. It is slightly more difficult if the conditions are different. In this case, the resulting file would be given a temporary file name and then the DB/C runtime would be started with the -cfg= parameter. Another method for dealing with this is to just run CVTENV in the script immediately before starting the DB/C runtime. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Question: When using the Microsoft ADO interface to access files managed by DB/C FS 2, it seems that the column description from the DBD file becomes the column name. How can we get around this? Answer: ADO uses ODBC to access information in ODBC databases such as DB/C FS. The ODBC API has grown over the years and is now quite complicated. Many functions were added in ODBC 2.x and ODBC 3.x. Some of the capabilities of the newer ODBC functions overlap the capabilities of older functions. The DB/C FS ODBC driver that comes with DB/C FS 2.2 is ODBC 3.x compliant. There are several ODBC functions that client software can call to retrieve the name, label, remarks and other information about a column. We have tried to adhere to the Microsoft documentation for those ODBC functions that DB/C FS uses. Unfortunately, the documentation having to do with column information isn't very clear. It appears that ADO uses certain ODBC functions in a way that causes the column description to become the column name. Regardless of the documentation, this issue will be addressed in the next major release of DB/C FS. For DB/C FS 2, you will need to adjust either your application or the DBD file to get the result that you desire. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Question: I can't seem to get the file path feature of DB/C DX, DB/C JX or DB/C FS working. What am I doing wrong? Here is an example: dbcdx.file.open=C:\USER\DATA1 Answer: The back slash character (\) is the escape (or forcing) character for all properties files. The correct way to specify the line in the example is: dbcdx.file.open=C:\\USER\\DATA1 ****************************************************************************** DB/C Class Schedule Class: DB/C DX and JX Language Fundamentals Date: October 9-11, 2000 Location: Oak Brook, Illinois For information, contact Judi Tamkevic at: voice 630.572.0240 email admin@dbcsoftware.com ****************************************************************************** Subscribing to the DB/C Newsletter If you don't already have the DB/C Newsletter delivered to your email address and would like to have it emailed to you when it is produced, just send an email message to 'request@dbcsoftware.com' and put the line 'subscribe dbcnews' in the body of the email message (omit the ' characters). The newsletter will be delivered to the email address from which the message was sent. To stop delivery, put the line 'unsubscribe dbcnews' in the body of the message.