mike@pmafire.UUCP (mike caldwell) (11/02/88)
We are looking at implementing a database in Informix to track and schedule training received by employees. The scheduling part I'm willing to bet can be done using 4gl with maybe a little C thrown in for good measure. The tracking is a fairly simple database, but the kicker is the reports that the managers want to see. I have told them that since I have access to C from 4gl and thence Unix utilities like sort, cut, awk, etc. that there won't be any problem. But management is afraid that asking the people that will maintain the database to learn more than 4gl is out of the question. I think I have management convinced of everything except for a couple of questions. The questions are: (1) Can you tie Query by Example to a report? They want the user to enter a query on a screen form, retreive the information from the database, send the information to a printer formating it using report. I see know problem but haven't done anything similiar. Has anyone done something like this? (2) Can the specified printer be entered as a variable? I proposed just using an editor to duplicate the report and letting 4gl call the right version. Has anyone solved this problem? (3) The last problem is a complicated? ordering scheme were you group employees by partial organization number (all employees with 2xxx, 3xxx, etc) and then name. There was an similiar example in "Building Applications Using a 4gl", but the output shown in the example was incorrect (page 119). This is problem that seems easier to solve using sort, etc. Has anyone done something similiar using subqueries or something? What was the performance like say over thousands of records? If anyone has attacked similiar problems using Informix I would really appreciate hearing about your experience and conclusions. Email to me and I will post summary to net if there is enough interest. Thanks in Advance Mike Caldwell ...!uunet!utastro!bigtex!pmafire!mike