RE: 4GL authoring programs.

In article <3p00ib$o7t@cssun.mathcs.emory.edu>, watjep@emspo01.hasting.com says... > [abbreviated for brevity] > >I have been writing informix code for a long time and have always >copied other programs and used them as prototypes when creating new programs. >It seems to me there must be a better way to do this. Are there any programs >out there that will help one create a master/detail relationship into >a form and create a 4GL program to manipulate them automatically? Then the >program would only have to add special cases around the input >statements in order to check the data being keyed. > Paul, I have built such a code crank. It is limited only by your imagination. :-) Seriously, it will take two one-table form files, one being a one-row header, the other being a display-array, merge them together, and produce a header/ detail screen, the 4GL code, and a make file. It can be modified to suit as it's all Bourne shell script. You can get it for FREE at my URL, or check the archives at emory...look for mkhdrdtl--what else am I going to call it. There are some left over references to the price, but disregard 'em. You get 100% off for seeing it here in this newsgroup. >I use powerbuilder for GUI programming - and it does this quite nicely. It >makes me wish I could do the same thing for the character based >applications that we are often asked to create. > You can. There's a one-table maintenance coe generator too, called mk_4gl1. It does a nice job of setting up a screen for rapid protoyping or maybe even actual production. ALL 4GL with one little C program to get the user id from UNIX. This code generator generates code based on the fields in a PER file, not just table elements in the data base. Oh, and there's an AWK-based screen-code crank too....allows you to create default screens that can be customized from the beginning, so if your site has a certain look and feel, your default screens can have a predefined look to them. This is to a limited degree though--don't expect to be putting logos on your per files. >Another nice program would be a report writer for Informix that >builds nice looking reports (boxes, columns etc) to output to >postscript printers. Is there such a thing or am I dreaming? >Any pointers are appreciated. > There's also some troff stuff to help you, and a couple of folks have submitted their troff scripts. You can also use fgl_drawbox, see the FAQ. ( By the way, where's the FAQ? :-) I've been wanting to ask for so long now. ) Any questions/comments about any of my tools just email me. They aren't perfect, but they might help. There will be a new posting shortly of some improvements to some of the tools. Hard as I tried to keep 'em out, bugs, errors and omissions occured. And there's always room for improvement anyway. -- \\\\|// [o|o] ==============================---o00--(_)--00o---============================ Tim Schaefer http://www.gate.net/~tschaefe The Computer Business Company, Inc. tschaefe@gate.net Coconut Creek, FL, USA INXUTIL 2.0 is now absolutely FREE He's dead Jim... --Dr. McCoy =============================================================================