Access to the OS file system from D3 is possible through the OSFI – the Open System File Interface. Over time I’ve noticed some confusion in how our colleagues use and under-use this feature, so I thought I’d clarify a couple points here.
I saw another question today about whether a VAR should recommend D3 Windows or D3 Linux. Knowing many sites that have moved from Windows to Linux, and those that have not, I thought I’d post my thoughts on it here for a more general audience.
I don’t know how many people know this but activating D3NT is a real breeze in v7.5.x because activations are provided transparently over the internet. Hmmm, this seems to dove-tail with the Web Services blogs.
Back in March 2008 I wrote a blog here called Lonely Shell Variables. Today I was fiddling with shell variables in D3 (also called Environment variables) and once again I marvelled at the power and flexibility – but I’d bet the number of people who really use this functionality can be counted on a single hand. Today, in an unusually […]
I needed to get information out of D3 and there is no standard function to get it. After a couple emails with TigerLogic support, I was able to write two lines of code to get what I needed. Wow, that’s cool. Now should I be a good community citizen and give it away? Should I give anything away? In this […]
A question came up in CDP about what a “large” dynamic array is, when used as a select list, and when lists should be processed as dimensioned arrays versus dynamic arrays. The answer can be more complex than one might think.
A while back I wrote a blog entry on how D3 FlashBASIC works. That blog/article was recently re-published in International Spectrum magazine. Yay! In the QM forum a question came up as to how D3 caches BASIC object code. I thought the little I knew about the topic would serve as a supplemental update to that other entry – frankly I’m […]
I got an email about an issue with high-precision data passed to NebulaXLite. That started several exchanges with Tiger Logic Technical Support, and I’m summarizing what I’ve learned here.
Questions frequently arise in forums about how FlashBASIC works. So I thought I’d summarize it here. First, a primer on compilation and object code in general
A question came up in comp.databases.pick that asked how we could use a pre-defined set of values in a D3 query. For example: SORT CUSTOMERS WITH STATE “AZ” “CA” “NM” “OR” … but getting the state codes dynamically. Sure, we can do that, using shell variables.
A recent forum posting said the D3 Reference Manual is "confused" about which %functions are for Unix and which are for Windows. I have a lot of comments on this topic but with just a couple minor exceptions I disagree with the statement that the doc is really "confused" anymore.
Even after years many Pick people aren’t quite sure how atb7 or 8 work, they just put something one place, then the other, and if it works they leave it until they find out it doesn’t work for some new purpose. Here is how they work.
The following is some great information posted to the Raining Data web forum by Robert Burke, their new Technical Support Director. I’ve posted it here verbatim for your benefit.
Steven Dorst asked about setting D3 time from the host OS. Here are some notes about setting the OS or MV time from either environment.
Over the years there seems to be continuing confusion on how the D3 OSFI works, and confusion with the similarly named FSI. In this first tip on this topic, I’ll provide a couple hints about how to use slashes and drive references, and some examples for use.
I was just installing Norton AntiVirus 2006 from Symantec, and as I was setting up the Exclusion list of files to not scan I figured I’d share my list with you.