Re: Program Design Structure Question

On 17/06/2008, at 8:05 AM, Mike wrote:

I need to bounce this off you guys to see if there is a better way. This is
bugging every aspect of me and am looking for ideas to simplify my life.

I have two sets of files. Out of the 5 files in the set of files, only one
file in the set is different. So now I have a maintenance nightmare of
having two programs exactly the same (and keep the same) except for the
files they use. Is there a way I can make this one program? I could use a
flag and put an if statement on every read/write/update/delete, but could
there be a better way? The other file is similar, but different enough that
I think it would be best just to maintain two programs.

So what you mean is:
o 2 sets of files
o 5 files in each set
o 4 of the files in one set are identical to files in the other set
(in layout but perhaps different in name)
o 1 file in each set is completely different in layout

You can use OVRDBF or the EXTFILE and EXTMBR keywords to dynamically alter which of the 4 *same* files are processed. If you cannot programmatically determine which set to process on each run then pass in a parameter indicating which set should be used. For the two files that are different: make them USROPN and create separate procedures to handle each file and use the same determining factor to decide which procedure to call.



Regards,
Simon Coulter.
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