Ted Ashton wrote on this thread:

<<I'll grant that it's uncomfortable to depend on the delete failing, sort of
like executing criminals by making sure that the non-criminals have bulletproof
vests and the serially shooting everbody but as the non-criminals always do
have bulletproof vests and I have an inexhaustible supply of bullets it should
be much more efficient than checking everyone's drivers license and only
shooting the ones who need to be shot.>>

I have been watching this thread on the digest that I forgot to turn off after
the weekend. I was about to send a note when I saw Wirt Atmar's note with which
I agree fully. Now I'll step in.

The behavior of DBDELETE is well-defined, and not broken as has been observed.
To smear a routine that seeks to delete all master entries so that only
qualifiying entries (no detail chains) with the analogy of shooting the entire
population, etc. is, well, faulty thinking. Depending on the condition-word of
44 when DBDELETE cannot delete the master entry is using the product exactly as
advertised. The table of the return codes for DBDELETE (Table 5-8 in the paper
manual I have at hand) is called "DBDELETE Return Status Values". There are
several categories of codes, like File System, Calling Errors, Communication
Errors, Logging System Failures, and lastly, Exceptional Conditions where return
code of 44 is described. Why is that necessarily negative?

Here is a Eugene Volokh example of the same thing, from a paper delivered more
than 17 years ago (and I hope this wraps well). If you have VESOFT, you have
this paper (PROGMPE.EBOOK.VECSL -- of course everyone knows about the goodies in
the VECSL account):

"Let  us  apply our rule #2 -- is  there a command that yields somewhat
different  results for job mode and  session mode?  In fact, there is. The
:RESUME command, when executed from  within session mode (but not from  break
mode,  since  the UDC will never  be executed from within break  mode)  yields
a  CIWARN 1686 (COMMAND  ONLY ALLOWED IN BREAK); however,  when  executed  from
within job mode,  it issues a CIERR 978 (COMMAND  NOT  ALLOWED  IN  JOB  MODE).
Furthermore, since  this is an OPTION LOGON UDC and will therefore never be
executed from break mode, the RESUME command has no other effects!"

Whether this (back to DBDELETE) is the BEST way to acomplish the task at hand is
beside the point.
===================
Leonard S. Berkowitz
Perot Health Care Systems
(Harvard Pilgrim Health Care account)
voice: 617-509-1212
fax:   617-509-3737
pager: 781-226-2431