Suprtool/Open 6.3.50

User Manual

Doc-To-Help Standard Manual

by Robelle Solutions Technology Inc.

Program and manual copyright © 1981-2021 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 6.3.50 1

User Manual 1

Program and manual copyright © 1981-2021 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

Notation. 19

Suprtool Version 6.3.50 21

Highlights in Suprtool 6.3.50. 21

Highlights in Suprtool 6.3.01. Error! Bookmark not defined.

Highlights in Suprtool 6.3. 22

Highlights in Suprtool 6.2. 22

Highlights in Suprtool 6.1. 22

Highlights in Suprtool 6.0. 23

Highlights in Suprtool 5.9. 24

Installing Suprtool 25

Overview. 25

Who Needs To Use These Instructions 25

Instructions for Installing. 25

Quick Start Guide for Suprtool 26

How to Run Suprtool 26

What is a Task? 26

Copying Files 26

Copying One File. 26

Appending to a File. 27

Fields in Data Files 27

What is a Self-Describing File? 27

Creating an SD File. 27

Define Fields in a Data File 27

Create an SD File from a Data File. 28

Repeating Commands 28

Repeating a Command. 28

Selecting Database Records 29

Select All Records 29

Look at the First Few Records 29

Selecting by Criteria 30

Simple Criteria. 30

Complex Criteria. 30

String of Digits 30

Selecting by Date 30

Select by Today's Date 31

Select by Particular Date. 31

Select by Year 31

Select Prior Month. 31

Selecting by Lists of Values 32

Finding Data Based on a List 32

Finding Data Based on a File 32

Finding Data Based on Another Table’s Criteria 33

Finding Data in a Data File 33

Sorting Database Records 33

Sort Records 33

Sort Records in Descending Order 34

Sort by Multiple Keys 34

Duplicate Records 34

Report without Duplicate Records 34

Report Only the Duplicate Records 35

Report Only the Unique Records 35

Report Only the Duplicates and Their Originals 36

Deleting Duplicate Data File Records 36

Decimal Places 37

Converting Numbers 37

Counts and Subtotals 38

Count and Subtotal on Sort Keys 38

Sort by Count or Subtotal 38

Total by Field. 39

Running Totals 39

Running SubTotals 39

Listing Records 40

Changing the Output Record Format 40

Producing a Condensed Table Listing. 41

Simple Reports 41

Your First Report 41

Column Headings 42

Printing Mailing Labels 42

Running Suprtool 45

Running Suprtool 45

Configuring Different Shells 45

Bash Shell 45

Dynamic Loading. 45

Control Characters and stty. 46

Suprmgr Configuration Files 46

On-Line vs. Batch Access 46

Command Line Options 46

Initial Command Line: -ccmdstring. 47

Default Outcount File Name: -oc. 47

Exit with Verify: -v. 47

Combining -c and -v. 47

Loader Warnings 47

Unix/Linux Notes 48

Shell Commands 48

Endian Support 48

Sdlinux Utility. 50

Hardcoded File Names and ROBELLE Variable. 51

ROBELLE Variable. 51

/opt/robelle/suprmgr 51

Outcount File 52

Differences Between MPE and Open. 52

Record Length. 52

Line Feeds 52

Duplicate Output Files 52

Classic Reals 53

Input from Stdlist 53

Missing Features 54

Suprtool Issues and Solutions 55

A Suprtool Task. 55

Input Choices 55

Processing Selections 55

Output Choices 55

Suprtool and Oracle. 56

Data-Types 56

Number Data-Type 56

Order By vs. Sort 57

Restrictions 57

Suprtool and Self-Describing Files 57

Create an SD File from a Table. 57

Create an SD File from a Data File. 57

SD Files as Input 58

Listing SD Files 58

Decimal Places and Date Formats 58

Extended Field Names 58

Restrictions of SD Files 59

Suprtool and Sorting Files 59

Suprtool and Personal Computers 59

Downloading to the PC. 59

Decimal Places 59

Spreadsheets 60

Two-Digit Year Solutions 60

What If I Have Four-Digit Years? 60

What does Set Date Cutoff do?. 60

Stddate and Set Date Cutoff 61

What does Set Date ForceCentury do?. 61

What If I Have Two-Digit Years? 61

What Is Wrong with Two-Digit Years? 62

How Do $Today and $Date Work? 62

Will Suprtool Generate an Error for Two-Digit Year Dates?. 63

How Do I Use $Today and $Date with yymmdd Dates?. 63

aammdd Date Format 63

Invalid Dates 64

Can Suprtool Convert Two-Digit Years to Four Digits?. 64

Case 1: Converting a J2 Date from yymmdd to ccyymmdd. 64

Case 2: X6 yymmdd Data to X8 ccyymmdd. 65

Case 3: Different Date Formats X6 MMDDYY Data to X6 YYMMDD.. 67

Performance 68

Eloquence Performance 68

Sort Performance 68

Oracle Performance 69

Analyzing Performance Data. 69

Variable Substitution. 69

Suprtool Functions 70

UC4/Scripting and Functions 70

String/Byte Functions 70

$TRIM (Works on byte type fields) 70

If Usage: 71

Extract Usage (target: Byte type fields) 71

Example: 71

Data Examples Before and After: 71

$LTRIM (Works on Byte type fields) 71

If Usage: 71

Extract Usage (target: Byte type fields) 71

Example: 71

Data Examples before and after: 71

$RTRIM (Works on Byte type fields) 72

If Usage: 72

Extract Usage (target: Byte type fields) 72

Example: 72

Data Examples: 72

Data Result 72

$UPPER (Works on Byte-type fields) 72

If Usage: 73

Extract Usage (target: Byte type fields) 73

Example: 73

Data Examples: 73

$LOWER (Works on Byte-type fields) 73

If Usage: 73

Extract Usage: 73

Example: 73

Data Examples: 73

$PROPER (Works on Byte-type fields) 73

If Usage: 74

Extract Usage: 74

Example: 74

Data Examples: 74

$SPLIT (Works on Byte-type fields) 74

If Usage: 74

Extract Usage: 74

Data Examples: 74

Data Examples: 74

$FINDCLEAN (Works on Byte-type fields) 75

If Usage: 75

$CLEAN (Works on Byte-type fields) 75

If Usage: (Not commonly used) 75

Extract Usage: 75

Example: 75

Data Examples: 75

$TRANSLATE (Works on Byte-type fields) 75

If Usage: 76

Extract Usage: 76

Data Examples: (Using above code) 76

$JUSTIFYL (Works on Byte-type fields) 76

If Usage: 76

Extract Usage: 76

Data Examples: (Using above code) 76

$JUSTIFYR (Works on Byte-type fields) 76

If Usage: 76

Extract Usage: 76

Data Examples: (Using above code) 76

$LEADZEROB (Works on Byte-type fields) 77

If Usage: 77

Extract Usage: 77

Data Examples: (Using above code) 77

$RESPACE (Works on Byte-type fields) 77

If Usage: 77

Extract Usage: 77

Data Examples: (Using above code) 77

$LENGTH (Works on Byte-type and numeric fields) 77

If Usage: 78

Extract Usage: 78

$ETOA.. 78

Extract Usage: 78

$ATOE. 78

Extract Usage: 78

String Addition. 78

Extract Usage: 79

Example: 79

Data Result: 79

Numeric Functions 79

$TRUNCATE. 79

If Usage: 79

Extract Usage: 79

$ABS. 79

IF Usage: 79

Extract Usage: 79

$TOTAL. 80

IF Usage: 80

Extract Usage: 80

$SUBTOTAL. 80

IF Usage: 80

Extract Usage: 81

Example of $TOTAL and $SUBTOTAL. 81

$COUNTER. 81

IF Usage: 81

Extract Usage: 82

$SUBCOUNT. 82

IF Usage: 82

Extract Usage: 82

Examples for $counter and $subcount: 82

$SIGNED.. 83

IF Usage: 83

Extract Usage: 83

$LEADZEROZ (Works on Display-type fields) 83

If Usage: 83

Extract Usage: 83

Data Examples: (Using above code) 83

Arithmetic Operations 83

+ - * / mod. 83

If Usage: 84

Extract Usage: 84

Conversion/Formatting. 84

$NUMBER. 84

If Usage: 84

Extract Usage: 84

Data Examples: 84

$EDIT. 84

If Usage: 85

Extract Usage: 85

Data Examples: 85

Other Functions 85

$LOOKUP. 85

If Usage: 85

Extract Usage: 85

$READ. 85

If Usage: 86

$INRECNUM.. 86

If Usage: 86

Extract Usage: 86

Date Functions 86

$TODAY. 86

If Usage: 86

Extract Usage: 86

$DATE. 86

If Usage: 87

Extract Usage: 87

$INVALID.. 87

If Usage: 87

Extract Usage: 87

$STDDATE. 87

If Usage: 87

Extract Usage: 87

$DAYS. 88

If Usage: 88

Extract Usage: 88

$MONTH.. 88

If Usage: 88

Extract Usage: 88

Suprtool Commands 89

General Notes 89

Abbreviating. 89

Uppercase or Lowercase 89

Multiple Commands per Line. 89

Continuation. 90

Comments on Command Lines 90

OS Commands 91

Calculator 91

Control-Y Interrupt 91

Add Command [Add] 92

Notes 92

Examples 92

Base Command [BA] 94

Before Command [B] 96

Chain Command [C] 98

Clean Command [CL] 100

Removing Bad Characters 100

Define Command [D] 101

Delete Command [DEL] 106

Do Command [DO] 108

Duplicate Command [DU] 109

Edit Command [ED] 114

Exit Command [E] 115

Export Command [EXP] 116

Extract Command [EXT] 117

Constants 117

Dates 119

Range of Fields 121

Numeric Expressions 122

$SubTotal Function. 124

$Total Function. 124

$Counter Function. 124

String Expressions 125

Splitting Variable Length Strings 126

Cleaning your Data 127

Un-printables 128

Clean Command Syntax. 128

Setting the Clean Character 128

Cleaning a Field. 128

Cleaning your data 129

Extract from a Table 129