Retrieve Spec Programming

One of the new features in Q&A 4.0 is the ability to use programming logic to 
retrieve records.  Retrieve Spec Programming to uses Boolean statements that 
return either a true or false statement.  Those records for which the 
statement is 'true' are retrieved.  The following are examples of a few simple 
boolean statements.

Salary: {Salary > 10,000}  - this will retrieve all records for
                             which the salary is greater than
                             10,000.  This is a very basic
                             statement.  The same thing could be
Salary: > 10,000             done with '>10,000' in the field.

Retrieve Spec Programming allows for the comparison of two different
fields within one record.  For example;

Salary:
Bonus: {Bonus > (Salary * .10)} - This would retrieve records where
                                  an employee received a bonus that
                                  was greater than 10% of their
                                  salary.

*** The programming statement can appear in any field in the record.
    It does not have to be placed in a field pertaining to the statement.

You can also do multiple 'AND' and 'OR' statements.  Be careful about the 
placement of parenthesis so that your request is clear.

Last Name: {Hired Date >= @D(1985/01/01) or (Manager = "John Smith"
                                            and Evaluation >= 5)}

              This statement would retrieve employees hired in 1985
              or later.  It would also retrieve employees who              
              report to John Smith and received an evaluation of 5
              or better.


More complicated statements would allow you to search for a value in any of 
several fields.  The follow example might apply to an invoice file that 
contained a specific part description in any of four fields.  In the example 
the  Part field would have to formatted as a 'TEXT' field.

Part1: { @Instr ( ( Part1 + "," + Part2 + "," + Part3 + "," +
                    Part4), "Widget") >0)}

This would string together all the values in the part fields. You would have, 
in affect, "Gasket,Widget,Thingagig,".  The @INSTR function finds the location 
of the Widget in that string.  In this case it would return the value 8.  
Since 8 is greater than 0 the record would be retrieved.  If the word
widget did not appear in any of the fields the value 0 would be returned and 
the record would not be retrieved.





Q & A Application Note       Rev. 6/92           #2121     Page 1 of 1