Announcement

**Michael Mattias** · 28 Apr 2005, 07:36 AM

Disclaimer: I haven't really worked with PB/DOS for about four years, so I am going from memory on this.

I'm not sure what the question is, Mike.

I experienced 'inconsistent errors and error handling' like this; they have been caused by:

1. Untrapped errors at some prior point in the program, and usually involved using LOCAL error handling and not turning 'ON ERROR GOTO' on and off correctly.
2. Insufficient stack space. This can be a real dog to track down, because once the stack is corrupt, everything goes straight to hell, because any error-handler code is perforce itself 'lost in space.'
3. Programs which, when compiled, have one or more segments "close to" the 64K segment limit. The compiler generates a compile-time error if you go 'over', but if you are 'close' it has resulted in flaky code (e.g., even a simple assignment statement failed without triggering an error).

The fact that you sometimes get an error, and sometimes don't leads me to think the errors are data-dependent.. that is, there is likely an untrapped numeric overflow and/or illegal function call caused by a missed edit (e.g., using some string functions on null strings can cause this) somewhere.

This untrapped error theory is further bolstered by the "impossible" return of error code #70.. unless of course, this error was set elsewhere in your program and was left untested at that time.. and what you get now is simply the vestigial effects of not handling the error at that time.

**Mike Luther** · 12 May 2005, 11:18 AM

Thanks Michael for your very thoughtful right on the mark comments. I've
added the following concept to my code for study to as best as possible
rule out memory corruption in seemingly meaningless and highly irregular
PB ERR 5 traps. Just after all the other DIM and initialization I've added:

Code:

  PUBLIC CCK% '       Create global memchk variable
  CCK% = 443 '        Set memory check to 443

I also added as a last print item in the disk recording of any unresolved
error handling data that CCK%. CCK% is never touched again except to first
file print it and thence on screen. If 443 is displayed at least some
proof of global memory integrity is there.

Code:

  WRITE #FL%(8), "INVENT.EXE Log # ", K$(56), " err# ", ERR, " line", ERL, DATE$, TIME$, CCK%

Well, I got to see a perfect 443 print for another irregular PB ERR 5
totally puzzling program collapse yesterday at a client site. I have
no explanation for the following PB ERR 5 which has happened perhaps 20
times over the last 50,000 sales invoices from this program at this site.

A single precision and integer array are defined and dimensioned at program
start and there is no redimension for:

Code:

  DIM QL#(2, 40)
  DIM LP%(40)

I don't prefer GOTO statements with line numbers over block IF/THEN code.
But over years of trying to trace these strange PB ERR 5 rare collapses
with hard target numeric line lables, it is possible to narrow a part of
code involved in these error traps which are difficult without GOTO and
numeric line lable code construction. Here's another example of these
queer PB ERR 5 code failure points narrowed down from a far broader block
of non-GOTO constructs covering years of use to the following code.

In the current code sample, the variable array QTX#(NJ%) is accessed and
filled from code used with absolutely no errors ever seen in years of use.
Yet we take a strange irregular PB 3.5 ERR = 5 at ERL 13995 hits for the
following uses of it in this one executable. As you think about this, note
that in no case in this site's use is QTX#(NJ%) ever anything but a value
of ZERO. In the entire portfolio of recorded errors for years here in this
executable over the years at this site, their entire result of QTXP# will
always evaluated to ZERO value. Thus QTXP# will always also be ZERO. At
the time of this job at this site at the end of a sale, QL#() array items
have not been used since setting them to ZERO at the start of an invoice:

Code:

 13995 QTXP# = 0 '               Spcl tax total
         FOR NJ% = 4 TO 16 '     Examine all special tax types
           QL#(2, LP%(NJ%)) = QL#(2, LP%(NJ%)) + QTX#(NJ% - 3)
           QTXP# = QTXP# + QTX#(NJ% - 3)
         NEXT NJ%
         IF QTXP# = 0 THEN '     No special taxes exist
           GOTO 14045
         END IF
       QL#(2, LP%(18)) = QL#(2, LP%(18)) - QTXP# ' Spcl tax not current earninins
       QPL# = QPL# - QTXP# '     Nor is it in profit and loss ledger
 14045   IF QIN# = 0 THEN '      We bought nor sold nothing
           GOTO 14065
         END IF
       QL#(1, AP%(9)) = QL#(1, AP%(9)) + (QIN#) '  Sell FGI out of inventory
 14065   IF O8% = 3 THEN
           GOTO 14090
         END IF
       QPL# = QTL# - STX# + QIN# + QHP# ' Profit includes no sales tax or FGI
       GOTO 14095 '                       Continue
 14090 QPL# = QTL# + QIN# - QHP# '        Profit reduced by inventory bought
 14095   IF O8% = 3 THEN  ......

Over the the last couple years, by changing the code to GOTO and numeric
line lable construction I've narrowed the line 13995 failure down to the
code above line number 14045 by changing the code from block form to the
GOTO style above. As I see this, if any QTX#() element was in trouble
prior to the above code, the PB ERR 5 trap would be then, not here. As
far as I can tell, I've thus 'forced' this 'error' to above line 14045.
And from the PB error handling references as I read it, there is NOTHING
in the above code at execution time which can result in PB ERR 5.

The above program is 25071 source lines long, a 480957 byte executeable
that cannot be run elsewhere, as virtually all of them cannot be, in this
site-wide 114 program suite of now over 1,300,000 lines of PB 3.5 source.
There is no feasible way to submit sample code beyond the above in any way
that I can see to further debug this. What is submitted should be at
least evidence something beyond the 'normal' ERR 5 issues are at work here.

What more can I do? This, the second example of what I see here that
I cannot trace, is just another of similar unexplained traps that haunt
me. Now that the CCK% 443 value shows, that at least might help defend
memory integrity. I'll add free memory and free stack trace attempts
here also. But can you get accurate FRE() data once an error like this
has hit?

Thanks!

------------------
Mike Luther
[email protected]

**Michael Mattias** · 14 May 2005, 09:56 AM

Thing one I'd do:

Recompile all modules, recording segment sizes. If anthing in like the 55K+ range, add segment break.

Thing two I'd do:

Put 'complete rewrite' on the development calendar. I know you have been working with this application for eight or ten years, and if you have had anything resembling 'normal' maintenance over that period of time, this code is likely rife with syntax and control flags and shared veriables you'd never use were you writing it new.

I am a commmitted believer that software source code has a finite useful life, and there does come a time when you simply must start over.

MCM

**Mike Luther** · 15 May 2005, 04:54 PM

Thanks again Michael for your time and thoughts..

Thing one I'd do:

Recompile all modules, recording segment sizes. If anthing in like
the 55K+ range, add segment break.

Already done in a planned sort of way. The modules, libraries ..
are kept in a hierarchy such that if a change has to be made in the
lowest level, that trips my work to recompile EVERYTHING which
depends on that module. Thus, the segment size will be the same
for any given library, in the final compiled product for any
executable and I know the size of all the lower level code units
as firm until it changes.

With that in mind, as the whole suite presently works out, the
largest single segment in it happens to be, of all things, the
very lowest level core PBU, which is and has been for at least
two years now .. 58K.

Duhh .. wince ..

You know, with all you and I both have gone through with this
issue of 'errors' in big whatever's, it didn't hit me until you
posted this. I'm going through and breaking up all the MAIN code
I'm working with at top level when it gets up in the 50K range.
But here I am with a core level PBU at 58K and this hasn't even
tripped my attention. It's worked for so long and so many years
and .. hmmmmmmmm..

Brings a question. I actually have this .PBU already set up
as a $SEGMENT in a library component which is already declared:

Code:

 ' ---
 $CODE SEG "PACKFILE"
 $STRING 8
 $COMPILE UNIT "PACKFILE.PBU"

It clocks in at 58K. I don't see how I can add another $SEGMENT
in the middle of it to break it up into smaller than 58K. Of
course, years ago when I first thought all this out, and the docs
for PB 3.5 tell us that 64K is segment max size, with no other
experience upon which to draw upon, I never thought about your
advised upper max size boundary.

Which brings us to:

Put 'complete rewrite' on the development calendar. I know you
have been working with this application for eight or ten years,
and if you have had anything resembling 'normal' maintenance
over that period of time, this code is likely rife with syntax
and control flags and shared veriables you'd never use were you
writing it new.

Actually, it's gone through a fairly large number of 'complete
rewrites' over the years. Curiously, the syntax, control flags,
and shared variables that are in there haven't been condensed much
at all over these re-writes. That's either the result of my
inability to see better at how to do things over the years, or ..
my ability to see what was needed 20 years ago and hasn't changed
since BASIC as a tool hasn't changed into a more condensed way of
doing things for these years either.

What has happened as the 'complete rewrites' have gone forward is
actually where new techniques and ways of handling data have sprung
forward have ADDED new modules to the old ones. A good example of
that in my suite was caused, for example, when PB's mouse routines
were added to my suite which was non-mouse enabled as first coded
back in 1974. A second total rewrite went forward when network use
of Btrieve file support was added to the original M/S PD7, thence
PB shared file support.

But that was all, as the other, is coded in modules which are write
once use many times oriented, totally, throughout the suite.

And to which a single master file of common named and declared
variables has always been included in all work, just to keep the
programs focused only on exactly same-use-definition such things.
As to syntax changes; sure! A complete re-write followed the
decision to *NEVER* again use a single line IF/THEN construction
as opposed to a multiple line IF/THEN - inside do this - END IF
way of sourcing things.

But the core goal for what to do with the project has never changed
over all the two decades of wishing. As I see it, all professional
site management is exactly the same!

For example, it doesn't make a bit of difference if the party at
the front desk takes cash from a family that is severely handicapped
and can pay only $20 a month on a $500 account bill. Instead of
handing the non-English speaking payor an English printed receipt
for the $20 bill, a $10 receipt is given, $10 is paid on the account
due and $10 is pocketed by the window clerk! The debtor goes on
for weeks and so on .. homeless .. no place to store the receipts
and a year later they still seemingly 'owe' hundreds on their medical
bill which really has been paid. But it has vanished into wherever
and no record of who took it is there?

No .. he paid with a $10 bill!

Or the $20 actually was recorded into the account payments, but $10
was written off and that same $10 amount was pocketed elsewhere? Or
a charge for $200 for whatever was made for supplies, and paid by
the client, client's representative, though the inventory of supplies
was never decremented and is over what should be there, but where?
Or used where else?

What difference does it make if this is medicine, a divorce issue
at law with a lawyer's client (fat chance?), or even massage parlor
big time house?

Or the brief, that in theory, was put on the mute and partially
paralyzed resident in a nursing home, but wasn't, was stuffed in
the aide's clothes and used away from the home - in another 'home'?
While the sponsor was paying for the service and thinking all the
time their loved one was cleaned up?

Makes no difference if the profession is medicine, law, police work,
engineering; whatever. The process of applying resources to solving
a problem is really the same. It is only the definition of the
resources and bookeeping and control of the application of these
things which change from one profession to another. I'm driven to
working toward an easily defined and near real-time management template
to bring this toward affordable reality.

And in that respect, while 'mice' may appear and infest the operation
of the template so one can point at something and control this or
that; the core issues of management and control really don't change
much as I see it. Haven't for thousands of years. Won't for thousands
of years more if mankind is a little lucky.

We just need a little BASIC help from the right stars in our horizon
like PB and Bob Zale .. on the right platforms where our ships land ]
and take off .. to give humanity a chance Michael.

Plus people like you who are willing to help like you are doing here.

Thanks friend for your suggestions.

And for what is is worth, simply adding two more numeric line numbers
in this program which we are discussing, has stopped the 'error',
and even .. grin .. stopped the failure to apply the change due printed
as such in some invoices .. from also being subtracted from the cash
ledger and print run from a few strange out-of-balance invoice runs!

Plus so far stopped the unexplained ERR 5 traps?

------------------
Mike Luther
[email protected]

**Donald Darden** · 15 May 2005, 10:58 PM

I use to have my share of grief with PB/DOS when some little
piece of code would work in the IDE, but would generate an error
during the execution of the compile process. I never could nail
it down, so I never reported it. I did learn three things in my
efforts to track it down and attempt to correct it that seemed
to help a lot.

(1) Avoid imbedding multiple IF ... END IF statements inside of
each other. After you put about three levels of IF statements
inside, in a large complicated structure, yos might find that
the IF/END IF branching goes screwy down somewhere deep in the
sequence. If I replaced some of the IF ... ELSEIF ... END IF
structures with SELECT CASE statements, the problem disappeared.

(2) If a particular sequence of instructions keep erroring
out, but compile and work right in the IDE, put a few
inconsequential statements at the point where the problem
occurs so that the offending code is moved down a few lines.
It does not help to insert blank or REM statements, these have
to be executable statements. I'm always using a variable called
"a" in my code, so all I do is a three or four lines of a = a,
and the problem will magically go away.

(3) Don't push the limits on the 64K boundary. Limit your
program segments to 30k to 40k by adding more $SEGMENT statements.

(4) The big change was to abandon the effort to create one
error handler routine that tries to handle any error. I just
do a global called BadErr%, and if I am about to do something
likely to result in an error, I execute this code:

Code:

Baderr = 0
ON ERROR GOTO bad
[execute the I/O or other statement that might cause an error]
ON ERROR GOTO 0
IF BadErr THEN    'here I caught an error, which I know must
                  'relate specifically to the previous
                  'suspect statement, narrowing the possible
                  'range of errors likely reported
END IF

The counterpart code for Bad is this:

Code:

Bad:
BadErr = Err
IF BadErr = 0 THEN BadErr = -1
RESUME NEXT

That's it. I now can process the error as a local event,
even inside a SUB or FUNCTION, and even though Bad: is located in
the main program area. The only time that Err is likely to
return a zero is if you are single-stepping through the code,
so I force BadErr to -1 to signal that the original error code
was lost, but an error trap did occur. You can also get the
error line number, but what for? Since it is related to the
offending statement, and is being handled as a local event,
you can already determine what the likely cause was and you
know where it happened. Sometimes I don't even bother to check
the BadErr value, particularly with I/O, because if I can read
a file, the probable reason is that it doesn't exist, or is
already being used by another process.

------------------
Old Navy Chief, Systems Engineer, Systems Analyst, now semi-retired

**Michael Mattias** · 16 May 2005, 07:25 AM

After you put about three levels of IF statements inside, in a large complicated structure...the IF/END IF branching goes screwy down somewhere deep in the sequence. If I replaced some of the IF ... ELSEIF ... END IF structures with SELECT CASE statements, the problem disappeared.

I had forgotten that, Donald, but now that you mention it, I had some weird things happen in this area... not so much with 'total' loop nesting depth, but specifically with ELSEIF when it's down a couple of levels, e.g., DO... SELECT CASE... IF... IF ... ELSEIF..

That's definitely worth a look, Mike.

**Mike Luther** · 16 May 2005, 09:47 AM

Thanks *VERY* much for your post Don.. and also Michael for the
confirmation of seeing what Don notes.

The comments on nested IF .. ELSEIF techniques actually focused
what I've also noted. But I never related it to the nesting as
to the focal point. Donald, this is the first time I've heard
about plowing around the error by:

If I replaced some of the IF ... ELSEIF ... END IF
structures with SELECT CASE statements, the problem disappeared.

Yes, I've seen this over and over again for many years here. What
I'll see is that the compiled code seems to hop over a line which
ought to be the target for the next point of execution following
the END IF, or in rare cases, more than one line. What is in that
'hopped over' line simply doesn't execute as I see this effect.

My most vivid memory of this behavior actually extends far prior
to Bob Zale and PB 3.5. It was also present in the M/S PD7 BASIC
compiler too, folks. I had been called and flown from Texas to
Woodward, Oklahoma to trace an error that just couldn't be in this
exact same behavior in PD7! And when I discovered the hop-over
fluke .. at that same moment, I was paged and put on notice my Dad
was going through death. Had to fly back to Texas with another line
number added just as you see here, in 1989, that 'solved' the prohlem
there too. No code is perfect. Neither is life. And this is NOT
a complaint of PB, Bob Zale at all. I would have far less to ever
contemplate in life had I not made the decision to rely on PB.

Now I've never tried the use of SELECT CASE to plow around this.
In every case where I've finally been able to pin this down, what
I've done is to simply add a numeric line lable at the first line
below the END IF where this seems to arise. It has solved the issue
here for me. However, I'll look to see if I can implement the SELECT
CASE style of coding that you've pointed toward, Don.

I've just checked this INVENT.EXE source at least to the MAIN module.
The worst nesting for IF THEN type constructs in it is to the
third level in one place in one pretty long block of such a primary
IF THEN which focuses a major program complex action based on what
letter the user punched in for a menu exit option choice. I convert
the letter punched to an integer value, then use IF THEN block coding
to totally contain the response work for that choice.

So said, I notice that, for whatever reason, there are a number of
otherwise not needed already existing numeric line lables in this
block! Without checking the development log, which I do keep for
each item, my bet is that this has already 'fixed' issues here. Let's
add a concept question short list here for thoughts about code
style, OK? It might be relevant to minimizing the effects of
this behavior as seen by others.

1.) I could change the exit selection choice, en grande, to
a SELECT CASE style coding.

2.) My code style, however, uses a global 'technique', that
in many cases, if execution of what is inside the IF THEN
block produces a non-valid data response, or the user
seeks HELP from a point in it, that the operation which
is being done is properly started over 'above' the
point internal to the IF THEN block.

Here is sample code that illustrates this:

Code:

5565          INSH% = 1 '                       Set internal search flag
              CALL PK50510() '                  C25HLD:
              CALL PK50661() '                  BRTWHTBLK:
              HBEG$ = "\invecplx\"
              PRINT "     Use complex search pattern routine? <Esc> <Y or N>:
              GOSUB 24745'                      Input a byte
              IF Z6% = 27 THEN '                Escape
                 GOSUB 6070 '                   Reverse slush stuff
                 GOTO 6040 '                    Close everything try again
              END IF
              IF Z7% = 59 THEN '                Help needed
                 CURL% = GXD% '                 Restore this line
                 CURS% = GYD '                  Restore this column
                 CALL PK50430() '               RETCURS:
                 GOTO 5565'                     Try again
              END IF

Notice that GOSUB to input a byte? Why would anyone want to use
such a thing just to input a byte? Well, the only way to stop PB
from totally running away with the CPU in multi-tasking environments
that I have found is to bury the INKEY$ routine in time sharing
release code. Hence, as earlier noted, one of the lowest level
core .PBU routines in the 50000 series reserved line number routines
in the whole code suite here, that GOSUB 24745 is actually:

Code:

24745 ' Input a byte
      BRT% = 1 '                                Set to bright input
      CALL PK50300() '                          INPBYTE:
      CALL PK50661() '                          BRTWHTBLK:
      RETURN

I simply can't afford three lines of code for every time a single byte
is required in input, chuckle. Not when that PK50300 sub is actually
FIVE HUNDRED THREE lines of code in the suite which actually really
NEEDS the following THIRTY-TWO global variables just to function properly
in our world:

Code:

SUB PK50300() PUBLIC '                          INPBYTE:

   ' Globals are BRT%, KZ%(), CURL%, CURS%, Z1%, ZZ0%,
   ' Z7%, GFX%, LNPT$, PRPT%, Z0$, Z2%, Z6%, VBOF&
   ' Row%, Column%, Button%, Status%, UseMouse%, Rows%, Cols%
   ' MouseButton%, MouseX%, MouseY%, sKey, Clix%
   ' OldRow%, OldColumn%, pbvScrnMode, SMSE!, MMSE%, YMSE%

   MsCursorOn '                           Turn on mouse cursor
   ZZ0% = 0'                              Null output choice flag
   Z6% = 0 '                              Null escape flag
   Z7% = 0'                               Null output function key choic
   VCNT& = 0'                             Null timer second counter
   DMYP$ = RIGHT$(TIME$, 2)'              Remember seconds of time
   CALL PK50420() '                       REMCUR:

Yes, every single just one byte input has to really involve all
that and now you can see why when Bob's wonderful mouse code was
put into the suite, the whole suite really had to be re-written as
you folks do properly advocate.

Plus which with all the lower level LOCAL error trapping code, plus
what LANCE finally taught me in the use of EXIT FAR really does work
to help trace these errors.

Now, Don .. Michael .. whomever. If I go to the SELECT CASE way
of doing these things, where do I place the LINE NUMBER LABLE to
which we should return UP PROGRAM, from errors, or help choices?

More important. You still have to go back and start all over at
a much earlier lable in the programs for major reversal choices.
What happens when IF THEN and END IF type construction is replaced
with SELECT CASE here? Does it stop this fluke there too?

And thanks for the confirmation, Donald, that you've also had to
resort to this one:

(2) If a particular sequence of instructions keep erroring
out, but compile and work right in the IDE, put a few
inconsequential statements at the point where the problem
occurs so that the offending code is moved down a few lines.
It does not help to insert blank or REM statements, these have
to be executable statements. I'm always using a variable called
"a" in my code, so all I do is a three or four lines of a = a,
and the problem will magically go away.

I have had to do this all the time for years now all through my
code work. I use the line 'GGG% = 1' for this same use. However
in this particular executable only ONE such use has been needed:

Code:

17830 ' Inv hdr      Only if disk file open
      BJH% = 1 '     Set to print the date on print
      CALL PK50121(NHDR%, HDR$(), XP$, LG%, C$(), TM$, DR$(), EX$, PVT$, PU$,
17844 GGG% = 1
17845 RETURN

Another tip you may want to add to your notes at least from what
has been needed here for years too in this issue is to never use
the CALL operation tied adjacent to a hard numeric line lable in
these very complex, very large and memory hungry programs. Pad
the source with a remark at the lable and simply place the needed
CALL operation just under it:

Code:

3595  ' PB error kludge
      CALL IN36771(MEDL%, MEPR%) '              TRAPMED:

Just trying to contribute back to those who are so thoughtfully
trying to help me here.

And lastly, Donald, I already also use a similar technique to your
suggested:

(4) The big change was to abandon the effort to create one
error handler routine that tries to handle any error. I just
do a global called BadErr%, and if I am about to do something
likely to result in an error, I execute this code:

Evem more specific, to bracket where an error actually is happening,
I seed the source with integer step trace settings! To trace
these curious hop over line execution issues, what I do is to
set an integer value to the line lable number as in:

Code:

13845  BTRV% = 13845

Virtually all of my code is far to large to ever run in the IDE,
which also still has major line display disparity between where
it shows you the code is running and where it actually is running.
Yes, I can bust this by adding those seemingly not needed numeric
line lables in the IF THEN sections of the code and so on. But
there are places even with LOCAL and EXIT FAR that defy analysis
for me. By initializing the above sort of trace integer and looking
at that with cheese debugging techniques even when I can't do this
in the PBD game for size and so on, I HAVE been able to plow around
some more of these issues.

Thank you all for your time and thoughts.

------------------
Mike Luther
[email protected]

**Michael Mattias** · 16 May 2005, 12:27 PM

Not when that PK50300 sub is actually FIVE HUNDRED THREE lines of code in the suite which actually really NEEDS the following THIRTY-TWO global variables just to function properly in our world:

Thirty-Two (32) GLOBAL (SHARED) variables? For only 500 lines of source code?

Then I think you should move this proc to UNIT (PBU) or CHAIN module (*.PBC) all by itself. If this is the "all mouse access" unit, it should not need to share any variables with "main" at all.

The use of more separately-compiled modules might simplify this error tracking dramatically.

[This message has been edited by Michael Mattias (edited May 16, 2005).]

**Mike Luther** · 16 May 2005, 09:36 PM

Well Michael ..

Yes, the mouse, and timing and what it returns really does get
shared by LOTS of other things in this suite, especially in
relation to what it and that low level I/O can be allowed to do
in relation to real-time totally integrated telecommunications
operations that also are embedded everywhere as needed as well!

When you really start working in near-real time with other hardware
operations and port I/O in the middle of everything else all this
does, indeed need global consideration. PB only allows us how many
SEGMENTS per program and how many variables we can pass to a given
SUB or function?

I suspect that most folks have no idea how global resources must be
when you contemplate a full near-real-time facility-wide control
template. It's taken me over 40,000 hours to even get this far at
packaging the concept. And it works!

The usual concept of a major programming effort is to break things
down and modularize things so that a particular more or less single
process is done as only one step. Hours, days, weeks, or more than
a month later someone else comes along and integrates just the
I/O from that and other processes into another 'module'. And on
and on. But by the time that string of modular processes is over,
the horse is already out of the barn. You can go broke and never
know it!

When an entire facility, such as a medical clinic, really winds up
with no back office and the whole thing; from the case files, the
complete inventory of things, the entire time operations for each
and every person who does anything, and the whole accounting and
operations communications I/O gets done with each and every minute
in near-real time, the concept of modularity is *SURE* still there.

But the issue of global items that really do have to share suite-wide
awareness is totally beyond what a conventional code architect has
normally ever seen or considered.

And yes. I sure could have reduced the PUBLIC variable, if .. I
had, say 64 variables that could have been passed to SUB's and so
on. But when I noted that early on in the decision to move to PB,
that was met with a view of, "Why would anyone need that many
variables passed to a SUB?" The House is too valuble in the middle
of the North 40. So we plow around it, right?

;

And you are darned sure right. This complex kitty *IS* reduced to
a whole cadre of separately compiled .PBU's, libraries of them, and
what is already some 13 segments for this executable alone from the
common suite-wide needs. And you are sure right to postulate that
tracking errors in this thing is a REAL excercise in detection work.

Do you know of any other professional facility management template
which lets you pull a complete income statement, balance sheet,
inventory control and count, all the case data, acting agent data,
latitude/longitude and position coordination of each event, time and
actions logging of the case, transaction posting and document
production, fully synchronized across the entire facility LAN,
phone line real-time inbound and outbound merged data into the
case and actions registries, every digit, every call progress
action in real-time sync and logged, with each and every professional
action? No, not client-server; server-server if you will.

When the hour rolls; it roles. When the day rolls; it rolls.
When the month rolls; it rolls. When the year rolls; it rolles.
All according to the rules and sure you can correct errors. But
you get to explain them all and when; in real-time as well!

Even what your mouse returned, as needed, wherever it happened
to be in public, with no place to hide under the chair and frighten
the Queen - without being known. Ah yes, TIMER and all that stuff
concurrently as well as needed? Including time slicing for mice
and all that stuff too. Remember, we may be running four or five
different PB 3.5 executables in the suite at any given time on the
same OS/2 box at any given work station. And it all works so well
it is staggering, to most folks. Takes both modularity as well
as globularity, chuckle. And you are, as well, exactly on target
with what you posted!

Yeah, if I had say 64 SEGMENTS maybe I could further break it down.
But like 64 variables per SUB, that's not too likely I suspect.
And this PB product is so beautiful, such a masterpiece we have,
that even a Go Devil is worth it behind a pair of mules. Just to
get to see the beauty of the rows ..

------------------
Mike Luther
[email protected]

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Error handling errors in PB3.5?

Error handling errors in PB3.5?

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