Frequently Asked Questions - jBASE for Windows
Here are the most frequently asked questions about jBASE for Windows NT and
Windows 95/98. Please read through these carefully (if you have got this far
then thanks for reading through the installation notes at least!), before sending email about a Windows problem. Please
read the Installation Notes here before going
anywhere else.
Unless you are desperate then please do not call and ask for support, unless
you have purchased a support agreement.
Those questions in full:
You can also review the generic FAQ for more general
information or return to the home
page to start again.
When you compile a Basic program with jBASE, it is converted to C++. The C++
code is then compiled to machine code. For this, we use the Microsoft Visual C++
compiler. You should purchase version 6.0. Microsoft publishes 3 editions of
Visual C++ 6.0. These are the Standard Edition, Professional Edition and the Enterprise Edition. Any of these can be used with jBASE. For
jBASE 3.2 and later, you must use Visual C++ 6.0.
The most common problem that people have is getting going in the first place.
This is almost always related to getting the compiler to work and is always
related to the way in which the installation was done. In addition we have found
that the Windows NT environment variables are very sensitive to typographical
errors and quite often the problems are related to this. For this reason, the
next release of jBASE 4 Windows will rely solely on the registry, which is much
more stable. Reading through these notes first may well solve 80% of all
installation problems:
Checklist!
- If you are having problems with the NT version: did you create a new user
to install jBASE into? Although there is no reason why you cannot use your
existing login, we have found that this is often the reason things don't
work as the environment variables are misconfigured. If you did not create a
new user then do so now, install Visual C++ while logged in as this user,
then install jBASE 4 Windows. Please create a local directory for the user
such as D:\users\myhomedir and ensure that you use the User
Administrator to tell the profile of the user that this directory exists.
- If you are using Windows 95/98, did you set the HOME variable in your
autoexec.bat file to a directory you wish to be your home directory. Use: set
HOME=c:\users\myuser and reboot Windows 95.
- Did you install Visual C++ correctly, while you were logged in as your
jBASE development user? It will do you no harm to install Visual C++ again
and see if your problem goes away as the VC++ install will not recopy any
programs that exist but will set up the users environment variables if they
are wrong. Alternatively, consult the list of Environment Variables and check you have
them set correctly.
So you have installed everything correctly as far as you can see but when you
try the BASIC command, nothing seems to work. What could you have done wrong? It
is almost certain that your Visual C++ installation is not correct for this user
in that the environment variables are not correctly installed for this user. You
can reinstall Visual C++ as this user or check the list of Environment Variables
below. You can go through the following list first if you like:
- Try the verbose option of the BASIC command [ BASIC BP Program (V ]
and see if it is failing when it tries to issue the cl command. If
it does, then your PATH is not set to include the Visual C++ bin
directory. Before rushing off to do this though, make sure that all required
variables are set by consulting the list below.
- To verify your PATH is not correctly configured, type the cl
command directly from the shell prompt. If the shell tells you off for
typing a command that does not exist, then you know that your PATH is not
set up.
- Reinstall Visual C++ or set you Environment Variables per the instructions
below.
Some users have found that after install, they can compile, but cannot
CATALOG programs. Go through this checklist to solve this problem:
- Did you create a local directory for this user, using the profile option
of the User Administrator when logged on as Administrator?
- If you type in the command lib at the shell prompt, does it tell
you that this command cannot be found? If it does then you PATH is not set
up correctly and you should either reinstall Visual C++ while logged in as
this user, or consult the Environment Variable list below.
- Does the home directory for this user actually exist?
- Do you have write permissions on the home directory for this user?
- Do you have the HOME variable set in your Environment? If not, then
consult the list below for more information.
- Try deleting the directory lib from your users HOME directory (be
careful only to remove this directory).
These commands seem to be the first thing that anyone tries on jBASE. In fact
we have decided to implement a form of these commands in a future release
because of this. However, the reason that these commands do not exist is that
they rely on an entry for each hashed file in the MD of an account.
Firstly, jBASE does not require that you have an MD unless you want a file
called MD in which to place PROC commands.
Secondly, we do not have entries in an MD for files as this would mean that
you could not just pick them up in the File manager or explorer and place them
in a different directory or even different computer. You would have to mess
around with the MD entries in all accounts where you wanted to see the file.
With jBASE, you set the Environment Variable JEDIFILEPATH,
to include all the directories (local or remote shares), where you think there
might be hashed files and jBASE does the rest. We think that the LISTF type
commands are a small price to pay for this feature.
A future release will support the equivalent commands but for now, just use
Windows Explorer or the File Manager.
You will only require an MD/VOC file if you wish to import PROC commands from
your legacy system or wish to use Q pointers. An MD file is not needed to create
files or to use jBASE commands. An MD file can be used to deny use of certain
commands though, should you require this. To set up an MD file, do the
following:
- Either ACCOUNT-RESTORE into the home directory (which will import you old
MD as an ordinary file called, remarkably, MD). Or in your HOME directory
use the command: CREATE-FILE DICT MD 7. You can of course make this
file bigger if required (see the jstat and jrf commands). Make a
link from the MD]D file that is created to MD
or just rename the MD]D file as MD.
- Create the environment variable JEDIFILENAME_MD (see instructions
below) and set it to the absolute path name of the file you just
imported or created. If the local directory for this user is d:\users\myuser
then you would set the variable as:
Windows95: set JEDIFILENAME_MD=D:\USERS\MYUSERS\MD
... in the autoexec.bat file.
Windows NT:
Variable: JEDFILENAME_MD
Value: D:\USERS\MYUSERS\MD
Then...
- Logout of your user on Windows NT or reboot on Windows 95, then login
again;
- Start up a jSHELL;
- Type in the command: UpdateMD
You should now find that you have an MD file that behaves like the MD/VOC on
your old system. You can file PROCS and Q pointers directly in it. Note that
file does not have to be called MD. It can be called anything (e.g. VOC) as long
as the it is pointed to by JEDIFILENAME_MD. You will also see that there are
entries for the usual LIST, SELECT etc and that if you remove one of these
entries, you will disable that command. You can also set Q pointers in this
directory.
To set up Q pointers within a Windows environment you must tell jBASE what
your 'account' structure looks like. The easiest way to do this, is to create a
Windows users for each of the accounts on your old system and have an MD set up
for each one as above. Then you choose a location in which to define a SYSTEM
file. We suggest that you keep this file separate from the jBASE installation
directory, although if you are repackaging your application you may require a
single root directory for everything (note that names and structure of
directories are entirely arbitrary and are down to you to decide).
Assuming here that you decide to create a SYSTEM file (use the CREATE-FILE
command) in D:\MyCompany\Globals you then follow the same procedure to
inform jBASE of this location as you did to define the MD file. This time
however, you set the environment variable JEDIFILENAME_SYSTEM
to point at your system file.
Now that you have a system file, you can use JED or ED
to edit new records in it that correspond to your old account names. These
records look like this:
OldAccountName
001 D
002 x:\users\directoryname
Where attribute 2 actually contains the base directory of the user
corresponding to OldAccountName. So, if you have a user called Datfiles
containing the data files from the old account called DATA
and its local (home/base) directory is E:\users\datfiles. Then your SYSTEM entry
is:
DATA
001 D
002 E:\USERS\DATFILES
Then any Q pointers that reference this account name will take attribute 2
from the SYSTEM entry and combine it with the name of the file in the Q pointer
to get the actual location of the data file.
As in UNIX and DOS, the Windows NT and Windows 95 Systems support the concept
of environment variables. In Windows 95 you set these variables from the DOS
Shell or in the autoexec.bat file using the set command:
set VARIABLE=VALUE
In Windows NT you need to set Environment variables for each user using the
System icon in the MAIN group of your logged in user. When you click on this
icon 
you will see a
dialog box containing two lists: Environment variables for the System, and
Environment Variables for User YourUser. You use this dialog box to
create new variables for your user and to modify existing ones by clicking on
them. Please note that you will have to exit the System dialogue box and then
exit and re-enter the jSHELL for any changes to be seen by jSHELL. We have seen
instances where only logging off and back in will guarantee that your changes
are seen. This is something we will avoid in the next release by using the NT/95
registry (consult your windows documentation) to look after the
environment.
If your jBASE is installed correctly, then when you check the environment variables (type SET from the command line) you
should see the following entries (as a minimum). Note that the
following list assumes you are using Visual C++ 6.0, if you are using a previous
release, then refer to the documentation for that release. Also note that X:
should be replaced with the name of your jBASE installation drive, and Y:
with the installation drive of your Visual C++ system. Please adjust directory
names appropriately if you have installed the products in other than their
default directories.
Variable Name
|
Value
|
JBCRELEASEDIR
|
X:\JBASE30
|
JBCGLOBALDIR
|
X:\JBASE30
|
HOME
|
HomeDrive%%HomePath%
|
Path
|
X:\JBASE30\BIN;X:\JBASE30\LIB;
Y:\Program Files\Devstudio\vc\bin;
Y:\Program Files\Devstudio\sharedide\bin
|
Lib
|
Y:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\include
|
Include
|
Y:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\include
|
Terminfo
|
X:\JBASE30\MISC
|
The Windows 95 release of jBASE already relies on the registry for many of
its environment variables. However, you should still set up the following
entries in your autoexec.bat file. Note X: should be replaced with the
name of your chosen home drive.
set HOME=X:\MyHome
Note that on Windows 95 there is no concept of defining a Home/Local
directory for a user, therefore you must explicitly create a home directory and
define it as above. If you still have problems, then you should use the set
command in your autoexec.bat file to define the Path etc as per the NT variables described above.