Suprtool/Open 6.2

Doc-To-Help Standard Manual

by Robelle Solutions Technology Inc.

Program and manual copyright © 1981-2020 Robelle Solutions Technology Inc.

Permission is granted to reprint this document (but not for profit), provided that copyright notice is given.

Qedit and Suprtool are trademarks of Robelle Solutions Technology Inc. Oracle is a trademark of Oracle Corporation, Redwood City, California, USA. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Robelle Solutions Technology Inc.

Suite 372 - 7360 137 Street

Surrey, B.C. CanadaV3W 1A3

Phone: 604.501.2001

Support: 289.480.1060

E-mail: sales@robelle.com

E-mail: support@robelle.com

Web: www.robelle.com

Table of Contents

Suprtool/Open 6.2 1

Program and manual copyright © 1981-2020 Robelle Solutions Technology Inc. 2

Permission is granted to reprint this document (but not for profit), provided that copyright notice is given. 2

Phone: 604.501.2001 2

Table of Contents 3

Welcome to Suprtool 18

Introduction. 18

Suprtool Components 18

STExport - Data Export Utility. 18

Rport - Data Reporting Utility. 18

Suprlink - Multidataset Access 19

Documentation. 19

Suprtool Version 6.2 21

Highlights in Suprtool 6.2. 21

Highlights in Suprtool 6.1. 21

Highlights in Suprtool 6.0. 22

Highlights in Suprtool 5.9. 23

Installing Suprtool 23

Who Needs To Use These Instructions 23

Instructions for Installing. 23

Quick Start Guide for Suprtool 24

How to Run Suprtool 24

What is a Task? 24

Copying Files 24

Copying One File. 24

Appending to a File. 25

Fields in Data Files 25

What is a Self-Describing File? 25

Creating an SD File. 25

Define Fields in a Data File 25

Create an SD File from a Data File. 26

Repeating Commands 26

Repeating a Command. 26

Selecting Database Records 27

Select All Records 27

Look at the First Few Records 27

Selecting by Criteria 28

Simple Criteria. 28

Complex Criteria. 28

String of Digits 28

Selecting by Date 28

Select by Today's Date 29

Select by Particular Date. 29

Select by Year 29

Select Prior Month. 29

Selecting by Lists of Values 30

Finding Data Based on a List 30

Finding Data Based on a File 30

Finding Data Based on Another Table’s Criteria 31

Finding Data in a Data File 31

Sorting Database Records 31

Sort Records 31

Sort Records in Descending Order 32

Sort by Multiple Keys 32

Duplicate Records 32

Report without Duplicate Records 32

Report Only the Duplicate Records 33

Report Only the Unique Records 33

Report Only the Duplicates and Their Originals 34

Deleting Duplicate Data File Records 34

Decimal Places 35

Converting Numbers 35

Counts and Subtotals 36

Count and Subtotal on Sort Keys 36

Sort by Count or Subtotal 36

Total by Field. 37

Running Totals 37

Running SubTotals 37

Listing Records 38

Changing the Output Record Format 38

Producing a Condensed Table Listing. 39

Simple Reports 39

Your First Report 39

Column Headings 40

Printing Mailing Labels 40

Running Suprtool 43

Running Suprtool 43

Setting Up a PATH for Suprtool 43

Bourne and Korn Shells 43

Dynamic Loading. 44

Control Characters and stty. 44

Suprmgr Configuration Files 45

On-Line vs. Batch Access 45

Command Line Options 45

Initial Command Line: -ccmdstring. 45

Default Outcount File Name: -oc. 45

Exit with Verify: -v. 46

Combining -c and -v. 46

Loader Warnings 46

Unix/Linux Notes 46

Shell Commands 46

Sdlinux Utility. 47

Hardcoded File Names and ROBELLE Variable. 48

ROBELLE Variable. 48

/opt/robelle/suprmgr 49

Outcount File 49

Differences Between MPE and Open. 49

Record Length. 49

Duplicate Output Files 50

Classic Reals 50

Input from Stdlist 50

Missing Features 51

Suprtool Issues and Solutions 53

A Suprtool Task. 53

Input Choices 53

Processing Selections 53

Output Choices 53

Suprtool and Oracle. 54

Number Data-Type 54

Order By vs. Sort 55

Restrictions 55

Suprtool and Self-Describing Files 55

Create an SD File from a Table. 55

Create an SD File from a Data File. 55

SD Files as Input 56

Listing SD Files 56

Decimal Places and Date Formats 56

Extended Field Names 56

Restrictions of SD Files 57

Suprtool and Sorting Files 57

Suprtool and Personal Computers 57

Downloading to the PC. 57

Decimal Places 57

Spreadsheets 58

Two-Digit Year Solutions 58

What If I Have Four-Digit Years? 58

What does Set Date Cutoff do?. 58

Stddate and Set Date Cutoff 59

What does Set Date ForceCentury do?. 59

What If I Have Two-Digit Years? 59

What Is Wrong with Two-Digit Years? 60

How Do $Today and $Date Work? 60

Will Suprtool Generate an Error for Two-Digit Year Dates?. 61

How Do I Use $Today and $Date with yymmdd Dates?. 61

aammdd Date Format 61

Invalid Dates 62

Can Suprtool Convert Two-Digit Years to Four Digits?. 62

Case 1: Converting a J2 Date from yymmdd to ccyymmdd. 62

Case 2: X6 yymmdd Data to X8 ccyymmdd. 63

Case 3: Different Date Formats X6 MMDDYY Data to X6 YYMMDD.. 65

Eloquence Performance 66

Sort Performance 66

Oracle Performance 67

Analyzing Performance Data. 67

Variable Substitution. 67

Suprtool Functions 68

UC4/Scripting and Functions 68

String/Byte Functions 68

$TRIM (Works on byte type fields) 69

Extract Usage (target: Byte type fields) 69

Data Examples Before and After: 69

$LTRIM (Works on Byte type fields) 69

Extract Usage (target: Byte type fields) 69

Data Examples before and after: 69

$RTRIM (Works on Byte type fields) 70

Extract Usage (target: Byte type fields) 70

Data Examples: 70

$UPPER (Works on Byte-type fields) 70

Extract Usage (target: Byte type fields) 71

Data Examples: 71

$LOWER (Works on Byte-type fields) 71

Extract Usage: 71

Data Examples: 71

$PROPER (Works on Byte-type fields) 71

Extract Usage: 72

Data Examples: 72

$SPLIT (Works on Byte-type fields) 72

Extract Usage: 72

Data Examples: 72

Data Examples: 72

$FINDCLEAN (Works on Byte-type fields) 73

$CLEAN (Works on Byte-type fields) 73

If Usage: (Not commonly used) 73

Extract Usage: 73

Data Examples: 73

$TRANSLATE (Works on Byte-type fields) 73

Extract Usage: 74

Data Examples: (Using above code) 74

$JUSTIFYL (Works on Byte-type fields) 74

Extract Usage: 74

Data Examples: (Using above code) 74

$JUSTIFYR (Works on Byte-type fields) 74

Extract Usage: 74

Data Examples: (Using above code) 74

$LEADZEROB (Works on Byte-type fields) 75

Extract Usage: 75

Data Examples: (Using above code) 75

$RESPACE (Works on Byte-type fields) 75

Extract Usage: 75

Data Examples: (Using above code) 75

$LENGTH (Works on Byte-type and numeric fields) 75

Extract Usage: 76

Extract Usage: 76

Extract Usage: 76

String Addition. 76

Extract Usage: 77

Data Result: 77

Numeric Functions 77

Extract Usage: 77

Extract Usage: 77

Extract Usage: 78

Extract Usage: 79

Example of $TOTAL and $SUBTOTAL. 79

Extract Usage: 80

Extract Usage: 80

Examples for $counter and $subcount: 80

Extract Usage: 81

$LEADZEROZ (Works on Display-type fields) 81

Extract Usage: 81

Data Examples: (Using above code) 81

Arithmetic Operations 81

+ - * / mod. 81

Extract Usage: 82

Conversion/Formatting. 82

Extract Usage: 82

Data Examples: 82

Extract Usage: 83

Data Examples: 83

Other Functions 83

Extract Usage: 83

Extract Usage: 84

Date Functions 84

Extract Usage: 84

Extract Usage: 85

Extract Usage: 85

Extract Usage: 85

Extract Usage: 86

Extract Usage: 86

Suprtool Commands 87

General Notes 87

Abbreviating. 87

Uppercase or Lowercase 87

Multiple Commands per Line. 87

Continuation. 88

Comments on Command Lines 88

Control-Y Interrupt 89

Add Command [Add] 90

Base Command [BA] 92

Before Command [B] 94

Chain Command [C] 96

Clean Command [CL] 98

Removing Bad Characters 98

Define Command [D] 99

Delete Command [DEL] 104

Do Command [DO] 106

Duplicate Command [DU] 107

Edit Command [ED] 112

Exit Command [E] 113

Export Command [EXP] 114

Extract Command [EXT] 115

Range of Fields 119

Numeric Expressions 120

$SubTotal Function. 122

$Total Function. 122

$Counter Function. 122

String Expressions 123

Splitting Variable Length Strings 124

Cleaning your Data 125

Un-printables 126

Clean Command Syntax. 126

Setting the Clean Character 126

Cleaning a Field. 126

Cleaning your data 127

Extract from a Table 127

Data Conversion. 128

$Number Function. 129

Numeric to Byte Conversion. 130

$Edit Function. 131

Placeholders and Format Characters 131

Byte-Type Formatting. 131

Z-placeholder for byte-fields 132

Overflow and limits 132

Numeric field edit-masks 133

Decimal Places 134

Data and Edit mask: 134

Currency and Dollar signs 134

Overflow and floating dollar 135

Set CurrencySymbol 135

Overflow and limits 135

Restrictions 135

Form Command [F] 138

Get Command [G] 141

Help Command [H] 143

If Command [IF] 144

Expressions 144

Numeric Expressions 149

String Expressions 151

Date Selection. 154

Long Expressions 159

Input Command [I] 162

Item Command [IT] 164

Date Formats 164

Decimal Places 167

Key Command [K] 170

Link Command [LIN] 172

List Command [L] 173

LaserJet Listings 174

Headings in Listings 175

Simple Reports 176

List Device 177

Listredo Command [LISTREDO] 180

Numrecs Command [N] 181

Open Command [OP] 182

Remote Databases and Oracle Issues 182

Output Command [O] 183

Put Command [P] 189

Q Command [Q] 190

Redo Command [REDO] 191

Reset Command [R] 194

Select Command [SEL] 195

Set Command [S] 196

CurrencySymbol 199

Date Cutoff 199

Date ForceCentury. 200

Date IfYY2000Error 200

Date MapToPHDate8. 201

DecimalSymbol 201

DumpOnError 202

EditSignNeutral 202

EditStopError 202