Sletten Kenneth W KPWA wrote:

> [snip] This feature includes what was for many years
>a separate request on the SIGRAPID enhancement list:  The ability
>to defer database opens until a particular database is actually
>needed by a database access verb.

Do you know if this will work for MPE files as well? I've been using
Transact lately to prep some Image information for display on a browser but
I ran into a couple of very annoying problems.

1. Transact opens all referenced databases and files when the program
starts. Therefore, the filename in the system statement is a fixed entity.
Yes, you can use file equations but that doesn't help when you are using
uniquely named message files as communication pipes back to a browser.

I wonder if the enhancement will give you the ability to tell Transact the
filename *after* the system statement - say, when you've dug it out of the
info string with the getinfo intrinsic. For now I'm using HPFOPEN and FWRITE
which means I can't use Transact's built-in file writing abilities.

2. I cannot call a Transact program from *any* process in a CGI context
under the Apache web server. I tried HPCICOMMAND, TL-CALL-TRANSACT and
CREATEPROCESS but with each I get the same result -- tombstone. I CAN call a
Transact process from the POSIX shell in a POSIX directory. Only fails in
the CGI context. This is a bummer because Transact is so good at Image
processing.

In fact, because Transact is so good at Image processing, I created a COBOL
program to run under a job whose sole purpose is to spawn a Transact process
on the browser's behalf. Message files are used to communicate between the
browser and the spawned Transact program.

I would have never considered going through all that trouble except that the
alternative for me was attempting to emulate recursion in COBOL -- something
Transact does with ease. The difference in lines of code would have probably
been tens instead of hundreds (assuming I could ever figure out how to do
the recursion with COBOL which is doubtful).

Now if I could just get around the CGI problem, I would do all my web stuff
with Transact.

--
Brad Feazell