One of my files was recently changed. The older data has an A25 field. The newer data has it broken up into 3 fields of A13, Packed 6 and Packed 6. How do I define the field(s) when it/they could be either of these?

syracuse, ah this is where focus shines, de-garbaging really messy input.
A: If your orginal A25 field contained those 2 numeric parts in fixed locations, then you can change your master
from
OLDFIELD,,A25,$
to
NEWFIELD,,A13,$
NEWNUMBER1,,P6,$
NEWNUMBER2,,P6,$
B: lets assume its not.
you have 2 routes to go: 1) keep the old layout and do alot of new defines?
2) set up the new layout (with one small difference), and reconstruct the old layout where needed.
I like #2.
NEWFIELD,,A13,$
THING1,,A6,$
THING2,,A6,$
--notice that the number fields are Alpha...
in the master. that's important, we don't know whats in there really.
Now, lets find out. Focus has this nice way of not bombing if you try to make a number out of something that isn't..it just gives you a nice zero.
In the master file, add some DEFINES
DEFINE NEWNUMBER1/I6 = EDIT(THING1);$
DEFINE NEWNUMBER2/I6= EDIT(THING2);$
....(whatever numeric form you need)
DEFINE temptext/A25=IF NEWNUMBER1 IS 0 AND NEWNUMBER2 IS 0 THEN NEWFIELD ELSE
NEWFIELD | THING1 | THING2 ;$
... that just reconstructed the old A25 out of whatever was in the field to begin with.
...now if you really only want the first 13 charactes of the new text field, so be it:
NEWTEXT/A13=EDIT(temptext,'9999999999999');
...or use the SUBSTR function, if you prefer.
Do all this DEFINEing in the .MFD and you're good to go. Prove it to yourself with

DEFINE FILE CAR
 
FRED/A5 WITH MODEL ='FRED';
IFRED/I5=EDIT(FRED);
ILUCY/P9 WITH MODEL=12345;
ALUCY/A9=EDIT(ILUCY);
END
 
TABLE FILE CAR
SUM FRED IFRED ILUCY ALUCY
BY COUNTRY
END

Its stopped snowing..i can drive home now.
g'nite syracuse.

It's freeeeezing up here in the center of the state - the North Country even made the weather channel - I pity the reporter.
Thanks for the info. That works OK given that we are changing all future store names from A25 to A13. But since 0 is a valid number for both of the new P6 fields, if I had wanted to truly check to see if the new fields are packed, is there a way to do it like in COBOL? Because I may have wanted to keep the A25 if they weren't packed. If I assume 0 indicates an alpha and concatenate all 3 fields together, 0 could really be a valid numeric and my store name ends up with unprintable characters in it (namely the packed fields).

Check out the function CHKPCK

quote:

Check out the function CHKPCK

I didn't get a chance to check this out since the file was revamped and all records are now A13, P6, P6 - I don't have records of A25 mixed in. Sounds like a good function for other uses though. Thanks!

Well, it must have been very cold up there...15 months between the question and the response...

glad it works.