PHD

[Robert J.M. Edis]

Mat

I agree with your logic in general.  In my case, because of the way that
the PDL source was split up (alphabetic) the parts containing the FILE
and RECORD statements were dependent on ALL the parts containing the
USAGE and ELEMENT definitions.  The record in the 4th 'FILE' definition
PDL source file was dependent on an erroneous element definition in the
2nd 'ELEMENT' PDL source file.  PDL does not have the syntax to DELETE
an existing definition so the only way to remove the erroneous element
definition was to delete the PHD and start again, if I ONLY had PDL to
work with.  By using POW* I could quickly go into the PHD as created so
far and correct the erroneous element definition.

I would NOT do away with PDL.  Both PDL and the interactive utilities
are extremely useful depending on the situation.  If PDL had a more
complete syntax set it may be better; if POW had better integrity
checking it would be better.  

Another way I was able to use POW very effectively was to identify and
remove orphaned elements and usages.  PDL has not built in validation to
identify orphaned items.  Using the GLOBAL DELETE tool in POW I was able
to locate and remove well over a hundred orphans in just a few minutes.
Somebody on the list had written some QUIZ programs to access the
metadata in the PHD that could provide reports on things like orphans,
etc.  This was a very useful tool for dictionary managers.

In the end my opinion is this: PDL is great but PDL and interactive PHD
is better.  Give me PDL with diagnostic tools and DELETE/RENAME
functionality and I could live without POW and PHDMaint.

* POW is a VMS symbol pointing to a DCL script supplied by Cognos called
PHDRUN.COM.  This in turn runs a set of QUICK screens to manage the
dictionary database.  The PHDmaint utility I have previously mentioned
is another VMS symbol pointing to a DCL script called
PHD_LOCATION:PHDMAINT.COM.  This too runs a set of QUICK screens that
allow a user to interactively create/rename/delete a PHD database.

Blue
PowerHouse consultant
Rhode Island, USA

Disclaimer:
The opinions and ideas expressed in this message are my own and have no
relationship to my current employer, Initial Technical Staffing, its
client CCI, or any of CCI's clients.


= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Subscribe: "subscribe powerh-l" in message body to majordomo@lists.swau.edu
Unsubscribe: "unsubscribe powerh-l" in message to majordomo@lists.swau.edu
powerh-l@lists.swau.edu is gatewayed one-way to bit.listserv.powerh-l
This list is closed, thus to post to the list, you must be a subscriber.