Conference bulova::decw_jan-89_to_nov-90

   
    I just received a copy of the CARDFILER io code. I too plan on
    writing a utility - when I can scrounge some spare time - to display
    CARDFILER files on ANSI terminals, and to convert a non-CARDFILER
    format file to CARDFILER format.                
                                                    
    Please note:                                    
                                                    
    o The CARDFILER format will soon change to support compound strings
      (although it is likely the new version will read this older format).
                                                           
    o The OOTB team (of which I am NOT a part) will not support datafiles
      created or modified by utilities/hacks written around the io code.
                                                    
    Send mail to ORCAS::HORMAN if you'd like a copy.
                  
    If anyone writes a CARDFILER utility, please mention it here. I hope
    to find enough time in the next few weeks, but it's impossible to
    predict my schedule. I know many people have expressed an interest
    in the utilities mentioned above.                   
           
    Craig
    

I would like to use the cardfiler as the user interface to a database - it is
an almost ideal application for this, since it is currently held on real cards!
Thinking a bit towards the future, however, I can see myself needing to write
programs to process the card data in arbitrary ways.  This is really the same
issue as is being discussed in .0 and .1.

Are there any plans to provide callable CardFiler interface routines?  Doing
so would increase the potential user-base considerably, I suspect.  It would
also stop people like the author of .-1 from having to write (extremely useful)
unsupported utilities to access the data.

If this hasn't specifically been asked for, as a future product requirement, 
then consider this to be one such request.

T

There are no plans for having an external calling interface for the cardfiler.

If you want to write up a proposal including what type of calls you want then I
will add it to the V3.0 wish list.

Neal

In response to .-1, here's a go at what I might want to do:

Essentially, I wish to have line-wise access to my data from a program.  So, I
would envisage calls such as
	CARDFILER$OPEN_FILE(Filename)
	CARDFILER$OPEN_CARD(Indexvalue)
	CARDFILER$GET_CARD_DATA(LineBuffer)
	CARDFILER$PUT_CARD_DATA(LineBuffer)
	CARDFILER$FIND_CARD(SearchString)
	CARDFILER$CREATE_CARD(Indexvalue)
	CARDFILER$OPEN_NEXT_CARD()

I think that would let me do anything I wanted from a relatively simple program.
Is this sufficient for a request for the next version?  I guess some of the
argument lists might need to be extended a bit ...

T

    I might suggest as both a feature I'd like to see, and a possible way
    to implement a way to load the cardfiler with data...Have it read in a
    standard ASCII file, probably formatted in just the way it prints it
    out. Like
    
    <cardindex1>
     <line1>
     <line2>
     ...
    <cardindex2>
     <line1>
     <line2>
    .
    .
    .

This has been on the wish list for some time.  Dave PHOBOS::WICKERT has written
a load program based on the I/O information that I gave him.

While I cannot support such a program, it may be useful for people who want to
convert existing data files.

Neal