Re: More than 99 indicators needed

Charles Wilt wrote:

On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 4:51 PM, Tom Liotta <qsrvbas@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I also hate to mention this, but if you always used pairs of indicators
in that file, you could mentally consider the indicator indexes to be 4
digit numbers, 0113, 0275. Then you could use a procedure to actually
set the individual indicators.
setInd (0275 : *off)
would split the number into two 2-digit numbers and do
*in(02) = *off
*in(75) = *off

That seems (at first glance) to be simple. But what happens to the
field on the same line that has *in(02) *in(76) and needs to be *ON?

That should be ok, the line with 0275 would be *ON,*OFF which since
we're AND'ing has the same results as *OFF,*OFF

Then why have two indicators? There are only two practical values -- *ON/*ON and everything else. The values *ON/*OFF, *OFF/*ON and *OFF/*OFF all work out to a *OFF result.

The 1st *in() effectively declares a "group" of indicators. But for any given print-line, it can have only one value. As such, each 2nd *in() must still be separately set. Further, the 2nd *in() can't be used to control a different field in another "group" on the same print-line unless the other field (or every field in the other "group") has the same HIGHLIGHT value setting.

When the value of the 2nd *in() is *OFF, the ANDed result will be *OFF regardless of the 1st. And turning the 1st *in() *ON will have no separate effect unless the 2nd is also *ON.

And when the 1st *in() needs to be *ON, a proc call like:
[ setInd (0276 : *off) ]
would really be tricky if
[ setInd (0275 : *on) ]
had just been completed.

I guess that the point I'm making is that _any_ subsequent developer better be very clear on what is going on with this.

Tom Liotta