Re: [pilot-db-list] Pilot-DB calculated fields

[Scott W. <swa...@my...>]

> Hi
> 
> I've just started to add PilotDB databases as a supported format to my
> program MPC <http://www.mootjelitt.com/mpc.html>. I've been looking
> through the documentation and most of it seems like should cause no
> problem. 


	Great! I took a quick look at your website and noticed that this 
is built for Mac OS X.  I should tell you that there is a problem with the 
Mac version of Palm Desktop that prevents it from transferring pilotdb 
databases to the palm correctly.  I don't know if you've tried to get 
pilot-link (http://www.pilot-link.org) to work on OS X, but it is one way 
to get /complete/ databases to the palm.  If you do have it working (and 
have found a place to download binaries), you could send the url to the 
newgroup?  A number of people have run into this problem, but there is no 
easy way to change the db format to deal with this bug in the mac palm 
desktop.


> 
> What I'm wondering about is the calculated field type, am I current when
> I say that the value is calulated each time the record is viewed? (it's
> not really clear to me if it does this or not)
> 
	
	No.  Calculations for scripts that make within record field 
references are done after each edit.  Calculations for scripts that make 
inter-record field references are done only when requested by the user 
(via explicit recalcuation, or via global preferences setting).  The 
calculated value is then stored inside the record so it can be fetched 
quickly.

> A second question is the field types, the number I get in my test
> database isn't the same as in the documentation or the datasource.h
> file.

	I belive there is a tranlation from the field ids in datasource.h 
to those used in db3.c (the actual file encoder)  datasource.h is sort of 
the 'generic' interface, db3, on the otherhand  is the current file format 
used by pilotdb, since its possible that db3 only supports a subset of the 
field types in datasource.h, there is a translation between the 
field enumeration in datasource.h and what is actually stored in the file.  
So, I guess you will need to take a look at that code.

	Hope this helps,

	Scott