Dictionary Reporter

                            Version 1.0



                   Author:   David Zaremba
                             216-221-6600 (work) 
                             216-221-9742 (fax)

                   70042,1446  (CompuServe, personal)
                   74143,3400  (CompuServe, Corporate)




DISCLAIMER:  While this program does not modify the Data Dictionary
in any way, information regarding the layout of the Data Dictionary
was obtained without any assistance from Clarion.  As such, the
information reported on is not guaranteed to be accurate. 
Furthermore, user of this program assumes all risks related to its
use.


Dictionary Reporter was created with two goals in mind.  Goal one
was to be able to print out documentation on the Clarion Data
Dictionary in a developer defined format.  To enable this goal,
goal two was to decipher the Data Dictionary.  Application
Generator was used as much as possible.  In fact, it could have
been used a bit more (some of the embedded source could have been
created through the Formula Generator, etc.), but in the interests
of time, and to avoid some of the problems of Formula Generator
(such as its insistence on evaluating Formulas in alphabetical
order as opposed to entry order), embedded source was used.

To allow a developer to tailor the reports to their own needs, 
Dictionary Reporter is being distributed with the .DCT and .APP
files.

All fields in the Data Dictionary (except for relations at this
point) should be in the reports.  If not, please let me know so I
can update the record layouts on reports. 

I also have Browse/Form screens under development to allow on-
screen display of what's on the reports.  The idea is to allow
editing of this information.  Because of certain data
relationships, this is not a simple thing (for example, not only is
a field saved, but so is its length, and multiple such fields are
concatenated together upon saving).  To be honest I would recommend
ALWAYS using Clarion's Data Dictionary.  But for those adventurous
ones, I'll release these enhancements at a future time.  Relation
reporting and screens will also be released.  

A number have asked about the .APP file layout.  I have looked at
it, and while conceptually similar to the .DCT file, it is
naturally more involved.  As I get time, I'll be exploring
reporting and additional access to it.

This was not intended to be an exercise in programming style or
ability.  This project was done in very small time frames (10 or 15
minutes here and there).  Looking back over everything, I can
already see plenty that I COULD have done differently.  If I get a
chance, I'll improve the coding itself.  But for now, it works, and
that's what matters most.

This project was coded using CDD 3.008 and Dictionary Version 8. 
Previous or future dictionary versions cannot be guaranteed to
produce accurate reports.

Feel free to make ask any questions or make any comments, or
criticisms.




Use of Dictionary Reporter:

Using Dictionary Reporter is straight forward.  Make sure Btrieve
is loaded before running the program.  Recommended parameters are
those used in the CDD.BAT file used by Clarion.  Then simply type
DCTRPT.  Upon startup, you will be presented with a standard file
selection screen.  Simply select the Data Dictionary to be reported
on.  This selection can be changed later within the program by
selecting 'Dictionary' from the Main Menu.

Once in the program, simply select which portion of the Data
Dictionary you want a report of (Files, Keys, Memos, or Fields). 
File Relations are not supported for reporting in this release at
this time, but will be available in the future.  You can select the
output destination (via the standard Clarion Redirect template).



Basic Dictionary Layout:

The Dictionary is laid out using variable length records.

The fixed length portion contains File, Key, Memo, Field and
Relation Labels as well as the Dates and Times the record was
created and last modified.  There is also a Record Type field which
identifies what type of record it is (File, Key, Memo, Field, or
Relation).

The variable length portion contains the information specific to
its record type.  At the beginning of this variable length portion
is a series of BYTE or USHORT fields that contain the lengths of
the various pieces or fields of information.  This section is
followed by a potentially long STRING field that contains all the
values concatenated together.  To extract a specific piece of
information, simply add up all the field lengths prior to the field
you want (this creates an offset) and then pull out the information
for a length equal to what is specified for this field in the first
portion mentioned above.


That is a very basic description of the dictionary layout.  Much
more can be learned by simply going through the included .DCT and
.APP file.  If you have any questions, please feel free to ask.