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XLU() Problem (Read 2157 times)

Carl Underwood Senior Member Members Offline Posts: 1351 Location: New Hampshire Joined: Mar 11^th, 2003	XLU() Problem Mar 30^th, 2004 at 4:24am	Print Post
	I'm not sure if this is a Sesame or a Q&A problem. I use XLU() in Sesame to retrieve data from a Q&A database. It seemed to work fine, until I discovered that xlu was only retrieving the records as they were originally saved in Q&A. What I mean by this is, if I edit a Q&A record, Sesame is not retrieving the new data. It is pulling up the pre-edited version of the record. (XLU within Q&A finds the new data properly.) I thought it might have something to do with Q&A still holding the file "open" in the OS, or maybe an OS disk cache issue. So I tried closing both Q&A and Sesame, and rebooting the computer - still didn't work. Next, I reconciled the db in Q&A. Sesame DID finally find the new data after that. But, new edits (done after reconciling) are having the same problem again. Lanticans, any idea where the problem most likely would be? Edit: PS: I just tried adding a new record in Sesame, in case it wasn't actually looking up the data again from Q&A, but the new record gets filled with the same pre-edit data.

	Carl Underwood CDU Computer Consulting LLC Epsom, New Hampshire
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Alec Lanticans Offline Posts: 200 Location: Ascot, England, UK Joined: Nov 22^nd, 2002	Re: XLU() Problem Reply #1 - Mar 30^th, 2004 at 11:47am	Print Post
	Carl - I've done some tests on this and found all to be OK, at least for me. If a record is edited in a Q&A DTF, or a Sesame DB, then the new values are immediately picked up by Sesame on another client, without having to close and open anything. I suspect that what's happening is that there is some confusion over what copy of a database is being referenced. When running client/server the drives and folders you see are those on the server. So "C:\Sesame\data" you see on the client is actually the C: drive of the server. I find that the simplest way to avoid these confusions is to create an empty folder on each machine which identifies it, for example: "C:\Sesame\Data\Compaq Server" and "C:\Sesame\Data\Dell Laptop". Likewise all XLookup paths need to be referenced from the Current Working Directory ("Start in") on the server. I have found that a lot of folk have got themselves confused by starting with a Sesame setup on a standalone PC, then installing a similar setup on the server. By having two of everything: identically-named folders, files etc, it's terribly easy to get mixed up. I've often done it myself! There's a detailed article covering XLookups in the April issue of Inside Sesame which will be out in a couple of days.

	Alec
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Hammer YaBB Administrator Lanticans Offline Fire bad. Tree pretty. Posts: 3436 Location: Ohio Joined: Nov 22^nd, 2002	Re: XLU() Problem Reply #2 - Mar 30^th, 2004 at 12:41pm	Print Post
	Quote: Next, I reconciled the db in Q&A. Sesame DID finally find the new data after that. But, new edits (done after reconciling) are having the same problem again. Carl, I'm confused about what you are actually doing. Q&A does not have a db, and you don't reconcile it. Could you clarify?

	- Hammer The plural of anecdote is not data.
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Carl Underwood Senior Member Members Offline Posts: 1351 Location: New Hampshire Joined: Mar 11^th, 2003	Re: XLU() Problem Reply #3 - Mar 30^th, 2004 at 12:47pm	Print Post
	Alec, I'm not using client/server mode - just standalone. (I did test in c/s mode, just in case that made a difference - same outcome.) I'm certain that I have Sesame pointed to the Q&A DTF I'm editing, because all I have to do to see the new edits is RECOVER the Q&A DTF (without exiting from either Q&A or the Sesame record), and the new data will show up in Sesame.

	Carl Underwood CDU Computer Consulting LLC Epsom, New Hampshire
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Carl Underwood Senior Member Members Offline Posts: 1351 Location: New Hampshire Joined: Mar 11^th, 2003	Re: XLU() Problem Reply #4 - Mar 30^th, 2004 at 12:58pm	Print Post
	Erika, Sorry about the confusion. I was using "db" as shorthand for "database". I see now how you would think I was talking about a Sesame *.db file. It was very late when I posted last night. I meant to say "RECOVER' not "reconcile". The Sesame XLU is getting data from a Q&A DTF that I am running "R - Recover database" (in the FILE UTILITIES MENU) in Q&A.

	Carl Underwood CDU Computer Consulting LLC Epsom, New Hampshire
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Carl Underwood Senior Member Members Offline Posts: 1351 Location: New Hampshire Joined: Mar 11^th, 2003	Re: XLU() Problem Reply #5 - Mar 30^th, 2004 at 2:07pm	Print Post
	Problem found! It was Q&A's problem. (As all of the Lantican's sigh with relief. ) The problem seems to have gone away by copying the DTF design and copying all the records over to the new design in Q&A. There must be some problem with my Q&A DTF file even though it has been functioning perfectly fine and John Dow's DTFCHECK.EXE program doesn't report any issues. Though... I am still curious as to why Q&A could still pick up the changes when Sesame could not.

	Carl Underwood CDU Computer Consulting LLC Epsom, New Hampshire
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The Cow YaBB Administrator Offline Posts: 2530 Joined: Nov 22^nd, 2002	Re: XLU() Problem Reply #6 - Mar 30^th, 2004 at 2:42pm	Print Post
	Sesame and Q&A share no code whatsoever. So the Q&A translator and the Q&A Xlookup function, were written from Q&A file specifications. That means that Sesame is substantially more rigorous when it comes to mild corruption. Q&A has had 20+ years to develop strategies for dealing with files that don't meet the specification - working around the problems that come up. Sesame has to stick to how a Q&A file should be according to the specification. I imagine that, over time, Sesame will deal with more and more kinds of Q&A corruption. We already make accomodations for several Q&A file bugs. Q&A seems (for good and ill) to ignore, often without even a warning, many kinds of file corruption. This tolerance on its part is remarkable, but has a down side in that it can cause corruption to get worse over time - until the data itself is impaired.

	Mark Lasersohn&&Programmer&&Lantica Software, LLC
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Carl Underwood Senior Member Members Offline Posts: 1351 Location: New Hampshire Joined: Mar 11^th, 2003	Re: XLU() Problem Reply #7 - Mar 30^th, 2004 at 2:51pm	Print Post
	Mark, Good answer.

	Carl Underwood CDU Computer Consulting LLC Epsom, New Hampshire
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Carl Underwood Senior Member Members Offline Posts: 1351 Location: New Hampshire Joined: Mar 11^th, 2003	Re: XLU() Problem Reply #8 - Apr 9^th, 2004 at 12:27am	Print Post
	The problem I originally posted in this thread has returned. We thought that there must have been some corruption in my DTF file. Apparently, that was not the case. It turns out that when I copied the Q&A DTF design, the Q&A sharing mode reset itself to "Automatic". I changed it back to "Allow", and now Sesame is having the same problem as before. As we all know, Q&A needs this set to "Allow" in order to XLookup from the same DTF that you are working in, which I still need. I'm pretty sure it's not due to a corrupt DTF file, because I have switched the sharing mode back and forth, and changed whether or not Sesame read the updates to the records in Q&A. Lanticans, any thoughts on this? Should Sesame be responding this way? If not, is it possible to fix it in the next release? [BTW, if you try to test this out, be sure that after making a change to sharing mode, you exit back to the main menu in Q&A, and press Shift-F6. This must be done before the mode change will take effect.]

	Carl Underwood CDU Computer Consulting LLC Epsom, New Hampshire
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Bob_Hansen Senior Member Members Offline WOW, They have the Internet on computers now! Posts: 1861 Location: Salem, NH Joined: Nov 24^th, 2002	Re: XLU() Problem Reply #9 - Apr 9^th, 2004 at 1:03am	Print Post
	A good working practice in copying Q&A Design: Always take the extra step to reset sharing to ALLOW. Have included that step in many macro files in the past that did a File, Copy, Design Only. Not always a problem but definitely shows up on WIN2K systems.

	Bob Hansen Sesame Database Manager Professional Sensible Solutions Inc. Salem, NH 603-898-8223 Skype ID = sensiblesolutions
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