Re: Suggestions

[Tony Carolla <carolla@xxxxxxxxx>]

<snip>
> I have a physical file that will hold gas type information, but one of the
> fields needs to be an integer id field.  My experience with other db formats
> is that I could set that field to auto generate so that as each record is
> written it will increment the count by 1.  we will be using this for cross
> referencing to some other files and must be unique.
</snip>

I don't know all of your details about how the records get inserted
into this file, but why not write a service program to insert a record
into the file.  All programs that are written to insert records into
the file could simply call the service program.

The service program could generate the next sequential number by using
a logical keyed in descending order.  This could be accomplished as
follows:

     SetGt(E) *Hival fmtname;
     ReadP(E) fmtname fmtDS;
     newDS.custnum=fmtDS.custnum+1;

Since multiple jobs might be adding records, you should unique-key the
file based on the identity field, and enclose the WRITE in a loop
conditioned to repeat if the %ERROR bif was on, and each cycle
through, re-evaluate the next number, as above.

Dou Not %Error;
     SetGt(E) *Hival fmtname;
     ReadP(E) fmtname fmtDS;
     newDS.custnum=fmtDS.custnum+1;

     // Build the remainder of the record format

     Write(E) fmtname newDS;
EndDo;


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