ABC Software LLC

Crashing on delete?

Andrew Zimmerman — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 20:05:00 +0000

The new delete confirmation routine requires at least revision 304 of the abcdll.dll file. The current version is 14.37.0.320. If you have reports of server crashing, especially if someone just deleted a record, this is likely the cause.

14.37 Change Date Reference# Format

Andrew Zimmerman — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 19:36:11 +0000

The date reference# field has been enhanced to allow the full 40-bit range of negative and positive integers allowed by the accumulator. The 8 character ascii encoding has been changed to achieve correct sorting. Existing data (if any) needs converted. … Continue reading →

14.36 Bug Fix

Andrew Zimmerman — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:09:39 +0000

We had a bug that could crash the server if a top level cram routine exited to machine code from inside a block. A block is code inside a pair of curly braces. Fixed in 14.36. Download abcdll.dll from Version 14 … Continue reading →

14.29 has F12 for save/new

Andrew Zimmerman — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 16:22:00 +0000

Version 14.29 dispatches the F12 key for save record and clear. The functionality is identical to F9 with the additional step of clearing the saved record. The steps are:
1. Call global 7 with F12 as the key.
2. Call global 2 (which calls local 2).
3. Save the record.
4. Set input location to field 0.
5. Clear the record
6. Call local 5 with accumulator set to 1.
7. Return to input mode.

Note that if local 2 does a ‘reject’ instead of a ‘return’ the record will not be cleared.

Local and Screen Variables, 14.22

Andrew Zimmerman — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 19:52:00 +0000

This post describes the use of local and screen variables in raw Cram code. They will normally be used with a compiler preprocessor.

The variables are allocated in the ’250 file. If the ’250 file is not available you’ll get an FC Error. Use localvar to allocate variables with only local scope, within a single format. Use screenvar to allocate variables that can be used in any of a screen’s formats, including formats called by screengosub and function. Two arguments follow, the number of variables to allocate, and the numeric value of the variable type.

To allocate two strings with local scope, use this command at the beginning of the format: localvar2,128 Local variables are allocated at the end of the ’250 file and grow down, toward the beginning of the file.

To allocate three integers with screen scope, use this command at the beginning of format 5: screenvar3,0 Screen variables are allocated at the beginning of the ’250 file and grow up, toward the end of the file.

To address these variables, use indirect arguments from 128 to 255. Use 255 and down to address local variables, with the odd numbers being used for indirect addressing. For local.0 you would use (254). For (local.0) you would use (255). Use 128 and up to address screen variables. For screen.0 you would use (128). For (screen.0) you would use (129).

Fix for line feed opcode

Andrew Zimmerman — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:47:00 +0000

The line feed opcode added by the V14 compiler can cause problems. It is decoded as an extended command, which will zero 1020 as there are zero arguments following the opcode. Version 14.13 bypasses argument decoding on this opcode. Do … Continue reading →

Date Reference# in 14.03

Andrew Zimmerman — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:48:00 +0000

Version 14.03 has a new variable type called “Date Reference Number”. This will be used for transaction reference numbers coded to the date. The numeric value of the new type is 24. The file structure compiler uses ‘R’ for reference number. The variable in memory is a numeric type of 39 bits. In the database it is coded as an 8-byte string with base 32 characters encoded into ascii characters of numbers and upper-case letters. In the accumulator it can be an 8-byte string or a numeric integer value up to 39 bits. It works similar to dates in that loading it into the accumulator with a concatenate command ‘&’ converts it to an 8-byte encoded string. Storing a string accumulator into a date reference number variable decodes the 8-byte string into the 39-bit integer value.

Nested Condition Blocks and ‘While’ Loops in 14.02

Andrew Zimmerman — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:58:00 +0000

Version 14.02 is now available on the Version 14 page. There are two major improvements to flow control in cram programming. These will minimize the need for ‘branch’ commands, making programming more readable.

Use braces (curly brackets) to isolate conditional statements. Brace pairs and everything inside them do not affect the condition flag and scanning of higher level conditional statements. This is similar to C language programming where everything to be executed after an ‘if’ statement is enclosed in braces. The power of the feature comes from conditional statements within conditional statements, or nested brace pairs. Unmatched brace pairs cause a compile error.

>A299

+"10"=1023:+"20"=1024 if1025eq"0" {label1:if1023>"0":-"1"`1023 {&"TEST"&1023load"C":&C.1print} branch1

} else {label2:if1024>"0":-1"`1024:

{&"TEST"load"N":&N.1print}

branch2

} always:&1023&"!"&1024linput >

Use the ‘while’ command to program loops without ‘goto’ or ‘branch’ commands. The ‘while’ designates the beginning of the loop and replaces the ‘if’ to check the loop condition. The code to be executed in each loop is enclosed in braces.

The following example would do a ‘print’ 10 times and the print “Done”:

+”10″=1025

while1025>”0″:{-”1″`1025:print}:&”Done”print

Compiler Fix in 13.56 and 14.01

Andrew Zimmerman — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:30:00 +0000

These versions correct compiling of direct arguments, broken in 13.55 and 14.00. Also, the high limit on an immediate argument on one-byte commands is again 127. This allows us to add stack arguments (temporary arguments with local scope) to application … Continue reading →

More Compiler Improvements in 13.55

Andrew Zimmerman — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:26:00 +0000

You can (should) now use quotes on immediate arguments for one-byte argument commands. The commonly used commands include goto, gosub, gotog, gosubg, tab, left$, and right$. Example: gosubg”10″

Goto and gosub can use immediate arguments up to “383″ and are automatically compiled as gotox and gosubx if required. Gotog and gosubg can use immediate arguments up to “639″ and are automatically compiled with the required opcodes. Example: gosubg”396″ instead of callq12.

You can use immediate arguments up to “147″. Example: left$1023,“147″

You can (should) now use the full 4-digit arguments for variables on these commands. You can use the range 1020 to 1127. Example: tab1023

There is special usage in programming cramcmd’s in screen ’251. In cramcmd context you are accessing variables starting at 0 instead of 1020. To force compiling variable access instead of immediate use parentheses to enclose the variable number. Example: tab(1) uses variable 1. This is not to be confused with indirect addressing which uses pointers. In cramcmd context you may use immediate arguments up to “127″.