41C X-Mem data file editor?

[Dave Britten]

(10-22-2020 01:39 AM)rprosperi Wrote:  It's interesting that after all these years, this is a rather obvious application that either was never created, or if it was, never got wide enough distribution that any of the still active members here know about it. More than likely, there is something like this buried in the PPC/CHHU Journal issues, but writing this from scratch may be less work than searching through all that.

For navigating (next record, insert/del record, etc.), I suggest you copy the key assignments (or mappings) from ED, as much of that can be the same; no need to invent something new when those keys are documented right on the device. The key difference is data files can have multiple 'fields' per record, rather than single lines of text, so some clever paradigm for moving 'horizontally' is needed. If each field will be replaced (rather than edited) you could use the [USER] and [PRGM] keys the same way these advance through a text file.

That's a good idea regarding the key assignments. I might double up a couple of them by stacking two LBL instructions so that it both mimics the text editor, and also provides more intuitive (in my opinion) bindings for some functions.

I think for the data entry function, I'll have the program temporarily PASN a global label to the R/S key and then halt, so that you can XEQ other programs for calculating the new item, and still press R/S to get back to the data file editor. The only caution would be that the other program can't modify the two storage registers that the editor is using, or open a different file.

I'm not sure what you mean by multiple fields per record, though. Aren't data files just a linear set of storage registers akin to a 1-column matrix on the 42S? Or is this some more exotic functionality I have yet to discover?