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Awk is an powerful text processing language that allows you to manipulate files containing columns of data and strings. Awk is extremely useful, both for general operation of Unix commands, and for data transformation.
 
Introduced in Recital 10 is the PIPETOSTR() function (as well as backticks `` inside strings) which can be used  in conjunction with awk to transform recital data.
 
The following links provide good tutorials on awk:
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There is a good article here this describes agile software development techniques. This is what we have always been doing but it's nice to see it defined formally.

We use this technique ourselves on our development portal.
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SE Linux is a feature of the Linux kernel that provides mandatory access control. This policy based access control system grants far greater control over the resources on a machine than standard Linux access controls such as permissions.

Many modern Linux distributions are shipping with SELinux enabled by default, Fedora 14 and Rhel 6 both install with it enabled.

When you run Recital Web on a SELinux enabled machine and navigate to the default.rsp page you will see something similar to the screen shot below.

1
If you launch the SELinux troubleshooter you will see the following problem.

SELinux is blocking the apache server from accessing the Recital server running on port 8001.

2
To manage you SELinux policy you must have the policycoreutils package group installed. The policycoreutils contains the policy core utilities that are required for basic operation of a SELinux system.

If you wish to use a GUI tool, you must install the policycoreutils-gui package.

At the command prompt execute the following:

As root

$ yum install policycoreutils

$ semanage port -a -t http_port_t -p tcp 8001

$ service recital restart

$ service httpd restart 
 

We use the semanage command here to allow the http server access to port 8001. Once you have completed the steps detailed above you can go and navigate back to the default.rsp page in your borwser, where you will find the permission denied message is now replaced by the default.rsp page.


4
SELinux does a great job of restricting services and daemons so rather than simply disabling it, why not work with it!

When it comes to security, every little bit helps...

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In this article Barry Mavin, CEO and Chief Software Architect for Recital debunks the myths and misrepresentations surrounding XBase and explains how Recital, an enterprise-class XBase platform, has overcome all the shortfalls and weaknesses of early XBase implementations.

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In Recital 10, you can declare anonymous classes and call anonymous methods in these classes.
// declare some simple procedures 
proc display(cArg)
    echo "display=" + cArg
endproc

proc show(cArg)
    echo "show=" + cArg
endproc

// create an object based on an anonymous class
myobj = new object()

// add some properties
myobj["name"] = "barry"
myobj["company"] = "recital"

// now declare an anonymous method
myobj["mymethod"] = display

// call the method
myobj.mymethod("hello world")    // displays "display=hello world"

// redeclare the method
myobj["mymethod"] = show

// call the method
myobj.mymethod("hello world")    // displays "show=hello world"
Where this becomes particularly useful is when you have a procedure that calls anonymous methods in order to process data. This technique can be used to call anonymous procedures in your code.
proc processdata(oArg)
    oArg.mymethod(oArg.name)    
endproc

proc show(cArg)
    echo "show=" + cArg
endproc

myobj = new object()
myobj["name"] = "barry"
myobj["mymethod"] = show
processdata(myobj)        // displays "show=barry"
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In this article Barry Mavin, CEO and Chief Software Architect for Recital, gives details on Working with user-defined Functions in the Recital Database Server.

Overview

User-defined functions (UDFs) are collections of statements written in the Recital 4GL (compatible with Visual FoxPro) stored under a name and saved in a Database. User-defined functions are just-in-time compiled by the Recital database engine. User-defined functions can be used in SQL statements to extend the power and flexibility of the inbuilt functions. Using the Database Administrator in Recital Enterprise Studio, you can easily create, view, modify, and test Stored Procedures, Triggers, and user-defined functions.

Tip
You can also extend the Recital Database Server with C Extension Libraries and use the functions defined within that library also.

Creating and Editing user-defined functions

To create a new User-defined function,  right-click the Procedures node in the Databases tree of the Project Explorer and choose Create. To modify an existing User-defined function select the User-defined function in the Databases Tree in the Project Explorer by double-clicking on it or selecting Modify from the context menu. By convertion we recommend that you name your User-defined functions beginning with "f_xxx_", where xxx is the name of the table that they are associated with.

Testing the user-defined function

To test run the user-defined function, select it in the Databases Tree in the Project Explorer by double-clicking on it. Once the Database Administrator is displayed, click the Run button to run it.

Example

Example: user-defined function "f_order_details_total".
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// example user-defined function
function f_order_details_total(pUnitprice, pQuantity, pDiscount)
    return (pUnitprice + pQuantity + pDiscount) > 0
endfunc
Example: using the user-defined function in a SQL SELECT statement.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// sample code to use a user-defined function in a SQL SELECT statement
select * from customers where f_order_details_total(Unitprice, Quantity, Discount)

Using user-defined function libraries with the Recital Database Server

You can place all of the user-defined functions associated with a particular table into a procedure library. You then define an Open Trigger for the table that opens up the procedure library whenever the table is accessed. This is a much faster way of using user-defined functions as it reduces the amount of file open/close operations during a query and also simplifies development and maintenance.

By convertion we recommend that you should name the library using the convention "lib_xxx", where xxx is the name of the table that the library is associated with.

Example: procedure library in lib_order_details.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// example user-defined functions
function f_order_details_total(pUnitprice, pQuantity, pDiscount)
    return (pUnitprice * pQuantity - pDiscount) > 0
endfunc

function f_order_details_diff(pUnitprice, pQuantity, pDiscount, pValue)
    return f_order_details_total(pUnitprice, pQuantity, pDiscount) - pValue
endfunc
Example: Open Trigger in dt_order_details_open.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// This trigger will open up the procedure library when the table is opened
set procedure to lib_order_details additive
Example: Close Trigger in dt_order_details_close.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// This trigger will close the procedure library when the table is closed
close procedure lib_order_details
Example: using the user-defined function in a SQL SELECT statement.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// sample code to use a user-defined function in a SQL SELECT statement
select * from customers where f_order_details_total(Unitprice, Quantity, Discount)

User-defined functions can also be used with any of the Client Drivers that work with the Recital Database Server.

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The SET RELATION Recital Navigational Data Command can be used to link two (or more) tables based on the master index key of the child table.  With a relation active, as you move through the parent table, the record pointer also moves in the child table, automatically selecting the first related record or moving to the end of file if no related record exists.    

open database southwind
// open child table
use order_details order orderid in 0
// open parent table
use orders order orderid in 0
set relation to orderid into order_details
do while not eof()
? orders.orderid, order_details.productid
skip
enddo

The code above will display the productid from the first related record, but you will often want to display information from all the related records in the child or detail table as in an SQL Left Outer Join.

open database southwind
select orders.orderid, order_details.productid;
from orders left outer join order_details;
on orders.orderid = order_details.orderid

In this case, we can use a second nested DO WHILE loop, for example:

open database southwind
use order_details order orderid in 0
use orders order orderid in 0
set relation to orderid into order_details
do while not eof()
// Display first or 0 child record
? orders.orderid, order_details.productid
// Display any additional child records
do while not eof(order_details)
? orders.orderid, order_details.productid
skip in order_details
enddo
skip
enddo

Or we can use the SET SKIP command.  The SET SKIP command can be used with DISPLAY, LIST and REPORT and automatically skips through all the related records in the child table.

open database southwind
use order_details order orderid in 0
use orders order orderid in 0
set relation to orderid into order_details
set skip on
set skip to order_details
list orders.orderid, order_details.productid

LIST and DISPLAY offer a number of keyword options to allow you to configure the display output.  REPORT offers full column based report design.
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MQCURMSGS()

Syntax

MQCURMSGS( <expN> )

Description

The MQCURMSGS() function returns the current number of unread messages in the queue specified by <expN>

Example

mqdes=mqopen("/myqueue")
if (mqdes < 0)
   messagebox(strerror()+",errno="+alltrim(str(error())))
   return
endif
do while (mqcurmsgs(mqdes) > 0)
   mstr=mqreceive(mqdes)
   if (empty(mstr))
      messagebox(strerror()+",errno="+alltrim(str(error())))
      return
   endif
   messagebox(mstr)
end do
mqclose(mqdes)

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TIP
The Compatibility Dialog settings are written to the compat.db file in <path>/conf - please ensure that the user setting the compatibility settings has write access to this file and directory.  Once these settings are written, the dialog will not be displayed unless SET COMPATIBLE is issued.

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I Just added a few new functions to the latest 10.0.1 patch release which should be generally available next week.
  1. New MD5( expC ) function to calculate an MD5 crypto key from any character expression
  2. New MD5FILE( expC ) function calculates an MD5 crypto key for a given filename. If the filename is a pattern e.g *.* it will calculate the key across all files matching the pattern
  3. New mod_recital.so available for using Recital Web on linux x86_32
  4. New mod_recital64.so available for using Recital Web on linux x86_64 
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