CONSTRUCT enhancements

[Candy M.]

We would like to be able to do two things:

1.  Build a form dynamically in the DOM tree without an XML (.42f) file.
2.  Then by using that form, have an enhanced CONSTRUCT statement
that allows you to specify the column-list dynamically with a screen and
specify the screen record dynamically with string and the screen record
matches the form.

Then, given any table in the database, we could generate a dynamic
Query-By-Form.  This would be really NICE!!  If there is a way to
do this now, I'd like to know how to do it.

I think it's like what Neil was talking about in other thread with his DBQUERY.
What happened to the dbquery that I have in my Genero Training manual?

Candy McCall

[Sebastien F.]

Candy,

Just a quick thought (not tried):

As you know, the data types of CONSTRUCT fields are defined by the form file (not program variables like in INPUT).

Maybe you can setup a CONSTRUCT that has a predefined list of fields (hard-coded), and disable/hide the fields that are not needed.
As long as the unused fields are defined in the form that should work...

The dialog internals are prepared for generic/dynamic programing (add fields dynamically), but we don't want to publish this for now as we have other priorities. We will certainly consider this in a future version.

Seb

[Sebastien F.]

Another idea I suggested one day to the team was to let you generate 4gl code at runtime, compile and load the module with a special instruction, then call functions from that module.

That would remove all limitations of the current static 4gl instructions, IMHO.

Just a personal thought, not discussed in detail with the team.

Seb