Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!ucsd!ucbvax!hplabs!well!dave
From: dave@well.UUCP (Dave Hughes)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix
Subject: OOPS and Foxbase
Keywords: Foxbase, tty, filters, OOPS
Message-ID: <6808@well.UUCP>
Date: 13 Aug 88 14:17:24 GMT
Distribution: na
Lines: 45


    We have two problems of adapting Foxbase db under Xenix,
both 286 and 386 to user interface realities. First, Foxbase db,
always opens with a hard-coded commercial banner before it goes
on to either the dot prompt or execute the first db program. 
Secondly - if modem-callers  who do NOT have terminal emulation
programs run it - plain tty mode - the whole session is 
punctuated by OOPS's (coming from curses, I guess), and is
totally unsatisfactory.
	We are using Foxbase db (DbaseIII+ compatible) for
online teachers in schools invariably equipped with low end 
1200 baud Apples with as often as not, no terminal-emulation
software (some of which is hard-coded in modem ROMs).
	We *want* to blank out the Foxbase banner (which usually
throws an elementary school teacher for a loop) but we *must*
filter out the OOPS for those who choose the 'tty' termcap mode.
	Calls to SCO result in the comeback "Fox wants to force
that opening screen on everybody." And of course nobody ever
thought that 116 one-room school house teachers in Montana would
ever be using  tty Apple IIs or printing terminals to run a
lesson plan data base remotely - so OOPS is a way of saying
"Get a fancy terminal."
	We have a kludge that works, but introduces other
problems.
            $foxplus search.prg | sed -f nooops
 
Where nooops is 1,4d s/OOPS//g in a little script file.
 
	1,4d masks out the opening screen, and s/OOPS//g 
converts the OOPS to spaces, but sed always holds the current
line in the pattern space until the following line runs.
	Consequently the following programs never display the
last, usually an 'instruction' line, at page or program
pauses until an Enter is pressed. Then it displays it, such
as 'Press any key to continue' but too late. We can't get the
'p' or 'P' sed parameter to flush the pattern space at 
pauses. (Probably don't have the syntax right here)
	So sed works but not very well. 'tr' can't seem
to translate only a 'set' of chars "OOPS", but deletes all
subsequent Os, Ps, Ss individually too. And awk is a
mystery. 
	Any simple solutions here to our little problem?
Dave Hughes
** If a thing is worth doing at all, its worth doing badly **
hplabs!well!dave