Executing the FOCUS code below on the AIX server creates a HOLD file that is cut off at 80 characters. Running it in Windows create a 141 character file as expected.

What's going on and is there anything I can do about it?

I am working on an AIX server where I have very little control. I can use FOCCACHE to save files for drilldowns but these files are deleted after a set amount of time. I'd like to permanently create files for debugging purposes, but it looks like saving them in an APP folder is not compatible with AIX. And I can't seem to use FOCCACHE for this purpose because I cannot see the files in Dev Studio.

-* File eqfilesavetest2.fex

-SET &ECHO=ALL;

APP HOLDMETA baseapp
APP HOLDDATA baseapp
-RUN

TABLE FILE CAR
PRINT
COUNTRY
CAR
MODEL
SEG.BODYTYPE
SEG.LENGTH
WHERE READLIMIT EQ 10
ON TABLE HOLD AS HCAR FORMAT ALPHA
END
-RUN

Argh!

Note: April 1, 2009: I've changed the name of this thread from "v7.6.5 and APP HOLDDATA command behaving unexpectedly" to "Dev Stuido v7.6.5 truncating ftm files at 80 characters" to reflect what I've determined to be the real problem.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Francis Mariani,

I'm running on an AIX box and I'm getting 141 character lines:

1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0
....+....|....+....|....+....|....+....|....+....|
16 141 W GERMANY BMW 530I 4 DOOR
SEDAN 5 8300 9097 14000 190 67 56
3250 103.8 18.5 0 0 18 0

1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0
....+....|....+....|....+....|....+....|....+....|
17 141 W GERMANY BMW 530I 4 DOOR AUTO
SEDAN 5 8400 9495 15600 190 67 56
3250 103.8 18.5 0 0 18 0

1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0
....+....|....+....|....+....|....+....|....+....|
18 141 FRANCE PEUGEOT 504 4 DOOR
SEDAN 5 4631 5610 0 182 67 57
2860 108.0 14.8 0 0 21 0

This is a printout using a utility one of my coworkers wrote. You will see that all the lines are 141 characters. Do you have some settings working against you?

This probably doesn't confirm 100% that the AIX and Windows server environments have exactly the same settings, but I ran a ? SET ALL command on both servers and the only differences were the TEMP DISK setting and the MODE setting, which are both expected to be different.

I'll open a case and see where that gets me.

It looks like the problem has nothing to do with AIX or APPHOLD, but how Dev Studio treats ftm files.

I created two files in a local app folder, test.txt and test.ftm with the following contents:

000000000 111111111 222222222 333333333 444444444 555555555 666666666 777777777 888888888 999999999 aaaaaaaaa bbbbbbbbb ccccccccc

129 characters (Dev Studio states the file size is 129 bytes each).

When I use the Dev Studio text editor to open the files, test.txt opens with all the characters in the line, while test.ftm has nothing after column 80.

Within Dev Studio, if I drag these two files from the local app folder to an AIX server app folder, test.txt is 130 bytes and text.ftm is 81 bytes - dragging and dropping truncates the width of the data rows!


I can't find any setting in Dev Studio that controls this behaviour.

From Tech Support:

"This is a known issue with DevStudio. There is a 81 character column length limit on opening SAVE (ftm) files. You would have to open it through text editor or wordpad."

The problem is that I can only get to these files from Dev Studio, and I can't configure Dev Studio to use an external text editor - so I cannot read ftm files properly!!!

I reconfigured Windows to open file type ftm with Notepad and now I can open ftm files with Notepad from within Dev Studio, but the file is still truncated at 80 characters.

Does this not bother anyone else using Dev Studio 7.6.5?

- Can't configure an external text editor that's more sophisticated than Notepad
- Can't view a ftm file from within Dev Studio Text Editor or Notepad without the file getting truncated to 80 characters
- Cannot drag and drop a ftm file from an app folder to the Windows desktop without the file getting truncated to 80 characters

I try hard not to use Dev Studio, Hand coding is the way

Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with using the GUI to write a report, I'm using it to open HOLD files created on the AIX server, I have no other way of getting to them.

Of course I prefer fine, hand-tooled coding.

If its a hold file with a master, can you just table it and bring it back as a report ?

or

try PCHOLD FORMAT ALPHA or INTERNAL

If I have 10 HOLD files created by a fex, I want to be able to look at all of them. If I stick PCHOLD in there, I get prompted in the web browser to download the first file, which is not what I want.

Yes, I guess I can look at the data as a report.

Francis, I just tried what you are doing, and got the same error, my dev studio is 7.6.8

What I found wasthat when the ftm is opened to edit, it is 60 chars.

I also had an xml document, opened it, its OK, well over 100 chars.

I renamed the ftm to a .txt, and it reads the full line.

Looks like its ony ftm files, perhaps other internal formats as well.

Can you filedef to a different extension in the short term, until IBI can fix the problem ?

Francis, Have you tried editing from Web Applications instead of Data Servers.

I found in my 7.6.8 Dev Studio, that the Data Server truncated, but the Web Application did not.

I'm on a stoopid three tier environment where the web component is on a different server, so Web Applications does not point to the App folder which is on the middle server.

I thought of renaming the file, but the Rename option is not available when I right-click on the file.

I cannot believe this problem is still there in v7.6.8.

Hurrah! "... has been fixed in the next release of WebFOCUS Developer Studio, 7.6.10, which is due to be production in Q3 2009"

quote:

has been fixed in the next release of WebFOCUS Developer Studio

Should we be worried about what will break instead?

T

Tony,

Looking at your signiture, it does not look like you have had much luck with DS in 7.6.anything.

Always watch out for splinters

jgelona,

I try each release as it comes out and evaluate it for new features against useability. So far I've not found anything that is sooooo good that it outweighs the downsides.

I understand that the move is towards the GUI and more empowered end users (something to look forward to ) and I'm all for that as it should give WebFOCUS the edge over other BI contenders, but end users are a fickle bunch and get frustrated very quickly so if the tool is not upto the job then it will be discarded for another flavour of BI.

I used 7.6.9 Dev Studio for a reasonable time but found that there were certain things that impacted productivity so I reverted back to 7.1.6 (actually I have moved back to 7.6.9 and am trying to live with it - must update my sig ). My client does use 7.6.2 servers and they seem to be OK but Dev Studio 7.6.2 just hasn't measured up! Other team members have upgraded and I hear them curse occasionally . The biggest problems I have found are with new GUI features (on the odd occasion that I use them) and reintroduced "features".

Over the years I've seen releases where a "feature" was corrected only for it to be re-introduced a couple of releases later, but it appears that has occured with greater frequency in DS 7.6.n releases (see other posts).

I will eventually move to something other than 7.1.6 of Dev Studio because I will have to (functional stability etc.) but for now 7.1.6 of DS suits my purposes especially as I hand code everything from .fex to HTML and JS. HTML I coded against 5.3.2 still runs exactly as it should, even against a 7.6.9 DS server. But then, that should be the case with backward compatibility.

T

I have a mess on my desktop. I am working with WebFOCUS v7.6.5 server. I have Dev Studio v7.6.8 (patched) and have been regularly updating Java, currently at 1.6.0_13-b03. This, according to IB Tech Support, is a recipe for failure. I have to downgrade Dev Studio (v7.6.5) and Java (1.6.0_03b5) before I report any further problems.

I encourage my users NOT to upgrade their java on a regular basis even though we get alerts to do so. We have a 7.6.5 client against a 7.6.6 server. The help desk added java 1.6.0_6 update to a new user's machine yesterday and she had problems getting into Report Caster which went away when I removed the _6 update from her machine.