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