Command line SUnlock unlocks the application. Is there any command line for Unloading an application.  In multiusers Server/Client environment, external application  cannot be unlocked if it is loaded. So, first one has to unload it before it can be unlocked. Yes, all these can be done through server administration.  However, if both can have commandlines, both (Unload and unlock) can be accomplished for locked external database (application) at the same time using @Shell()  from within the application with a press of a button.

Any Ideas?  Thanks.

Hi Bob,

Thanks for response.  I believe this will cause Sesame to close down. What we want is just to Unload an application that is to be Unlocked. While working on the application, you notice that some of the values retrieval by x-commands from external database (application) failed in normally daily operational application.  You are reasonably sure that the external database is locked.

I am not sure if SUnlock first unloads the application and then Unlocks it, but if that happens it would be ideal.  If the application is loaded, that one can see in server administration, and if you tried Unlocking the locked application, it will fail to unlock. In this case you will unload the application and then Unlock it, both of these processes are carried out using Server Administration.

The same way one will have to Unload the application before reconciling it. I believe, this issues are more relevant to Server/Client multi-User environment.

I am looking for a way to Unlock even loaded application using commandline, so that User (of course - authorized to do so) can do it by pressing a button on the Menu. I believe, this will be good for support.

Does SUnlock command unloads the application before unlocking?

Sunlock does not unload an application. It merely unlocks one. If you unlock a loaded application, anyone using that application will get a message indicating that this has happened and will have their access to the application disabled. The lock_status program, only indicates if an application is locked. It does not indicate if an application is loaded. If an application is locked, always check very thoroughly that that application is not loaded before considering using any of the tools to unlock it. The locking mechanism is the server's way of understanding that a file is loaded. It can check if that server has the file loaded, but can't check if a different server has it loaded by any means other than the locking flag.

From the command line, you can shutdown, suspend, and continue server activity. If you want to back up an active application, you can use any of the several means built into Sesame: backup on load, backup on save, and backup on interval. Or, you can suspend the server and copy the files (both of them) out from under the server, and then continue again. If it is absolutely necessary to unload the application, there is a SBasic command UnloadApplication, that will unload an application that is not actually in use by a user. It would be fairly simple to build a tiny application that allows this on a push button, or unloads a specific application when the tiny application is loaded (and thereby resembles a command line tool).

Yes, the sample I provided would shut down Sesame.  When I read application, I was thinking of any Windows program, including Sesame.  But now I understand that you were talking specifically about shutting down a Sesame application file, vs. a generic Windows application.

So, the syntax to do that might be:
psfile C:\Sesame2\Data\Fielname.db -c
psfile C:\Sesame2\Data\Fielname.dat -c

No time to test now, will try in the next few days.

Bob_Hansen wrote on Feb 23^rd, 2009 at 3:03pm:


It is never a good idea to close a file using system tools when Sesame may have that file open and writing to it. The files may end up half written or with chunks missing.

Bharat_Naik wrote on Feb 22^nd, 2009 at 10:33pm:

Bharat,

It would seem that Mark has given you the perfect solution: UnloadApplication(filename).

You would use UnloadApplication to unload the app, then use @Shell (or CreateAProcess) to run Sunlock. The code for this could be placed in a command button, just as you originally asked for.

UnloadApplication appears to have been created for exactly what you are attempting to do. Here's the description of it from the programming guide (page 426):
UnloadApplication unloads an application from the server that was loaded by one of the X-Commands and has not been opened by an interactive client (a user). It accepts the filename of the application as its only parameter.

You should not need to unlock the files after an unload as Sesame will unlock them when it unloads them.

If you close the Sesame server properly, it unlocks the loaded apps as part of the process of closing. If you kill it with something like Task Manager or use Emergency Shutdown or there is a power failure and your computer goes down, the Sesame server does not get the chance to clear the application lock.