Re: 4GL Function Tools needed

In article <4150uf$6uq@aztec.co.za>, <storm@aztec.co.za> writes: > Alexander J. Oss (alex.oss@films.com) wrote: > > : I highly recommend writing functions to manipulate strings > : in C and accessing them through 4GL. I do the same thing > : to access the open(), read(), and close() system calls > : since if I need to read a file (like a fixed-field, > : no-delimiter mailing list file off tape) 4GL can't do > : it (!). > > Wrong! It's not elegant but we once had to read a stream file from > an outside system and off the cuff we wrote a ten line 4GL that > coped well. Basically set up a prompt statement for CHAR in a > while loop and place the 4GL file in a Unix pipe e.g. > > cat stream_file | fglgo my_prog > > Later, the C version ran 15 times quicker, but we proved it could be done! Ugh! Executing a PROMPT statement for each byte? ..But damn, it works! <g>