COMPARISON OF CHCS FILEMAN AND DHCP FILEMAN

by George Timson

Prepared for the Department of Veterans Affairs, 1995


TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTION

II. DISCREPANCIES BETWEEN GLOBAL STRUCTURES IN THE TWO SYSTEMS

A. File-level Discrepancies

"Group Cross-References" on a File

Special lookup code for a particular File

"Pre-lookup" code in CHCS

"Post-Lookup" code in DHCP

LAYGO Code in DHCP

"Copy Access" in CHCS

B. Field-level Discrepancies

Uneditable Word-Processing Fields

Consistency Checks in CHCS

Auditing flags

"KWIC" index can parse on other delimiters in DHCP

"SET" Fields can contain MUMPS "Screens" in DHCP

"Technical Description" of a Field in DHCP

"Sort Value" and "Transfer Tag" of a Field in CHCS

"Archive" flag in CHCS

C. Other Global-Structure Incompatibilities

"Previous" values stored in a different MUMPS Global

"Check" nodes in Input Templates

D. Summary of Changes Needed When Porting DHCP Files to CHCS

E. Summary of Changes Needed When Porting CHCS Files to DHCP

III. DISCREPANCIES CAUSED BY CHCS ENHANCEMENTS TO OUTPUT ROUTINES

A. CHCS Output Enhancements

Specifying a list of values to sort on

Specifying Computed "FROM" and "TO" values in a Sort Template

Specifying which Cross-Reference to sort on

Allowing the "HEADER:" question to be asked at run time

Print Formatter

Captions for "SUBTOTALS"

Search Option can stop at "MAXIMUM NUMBER OF HITS"

Lower-case Print Specifiers

B. Summary of Changes Needed When Porting CHCS Sort and Print Templates to DHCP

IV. DISCREPANCY CAUSED BY DHCP ENHANCEMENT TO OUTPUT ROUTINES

A. Storage of "FROM" and "TO" values in DHCP Sort Templates

V. USER-INTERACTION INCOMPATIBILITIES CAUSED BY ENHANCEMENTS TO CHCS FILEMAN

A. Input Templates

";F" and ";N" Multiple Fields in CHCS Input Templates

"Going down twice" into a Multiple Field in CHCS FileMan

B. Miscellaneous User-Interaction Discrepancies

Lookup dialogue at "?" input offers user a better display

VI. USER-INTERACTION INCOMPATIBILITES CAUSED BY ENHANCEMENTS TO DHCP FILEMAN

A. Input Templates

'REQ' Fields in DHCP Input Templates

'DUP' Fields in DHCP Input Templates

B. Miscellaneous User-Interaction Discrepancies Caused by DHCP Enhancements

Lookup doesn't generally stop at exact match

Aborting output by typing "^"

'CAPTIONED' output can show Computed Fields

'Uneditable' Fields don't display and pause

VII. SCREEN-HANDLING IN THE TWO SYSTEMS

A. Incompatibilities in Screen Layout

B. Features in DHCP ScreenMan not found in CHCS ScreenMan

C. Features in CHCS ScreenMan not found in DHCP ScreenMan

VIII. PROGRAMMER-UTILITY INCOMPATIBILITIES CAUSED BY ENHANCEMENTS TO CHCS FILEMAN

A. Calls to the date-handling routines

B. Calls to the ^DIC routine

C. Calls to the ^DIE routine

D. Calls to the ^DIP routine

E. Calls to ScreenMan routines

IX. PROGRAMMER-UTILITY INCOMPATIBILITIES CAUSED BY ENHANCEMENTS TO DHCP FILEMAN

A. Call to EN^DIB

B. Calls to the ^DIC routine

C. Calls to the ^DIE routine

D. Calls to the ^DIK routine

E. Calls to the ^DIP routine

F. Calls to the ^DIQ routine

G. Listing and Deleting Files

H. Calls to Routines Non-existent in CHCS

X. DATA EXTRACTION IN THE TWO SYSTEMS -- DIFROM, TAPEMAN, FILEGRAMS AND ARCHIVING

XI. CONCLUSION