SIRxs in Review aka The Joys of XS Presented at SIR-UK Conference Dublin, Ireland, June 2008 © Tom Shriver, DataVisor 2008

SIRxs in Review Presented at SIR-UK Conference Dublin, Ireland, June 2008 © Tom Shriver, DataVisor 2008 Photo Rights Alex Comfort, M.D.

SIRxs in Review The Joy of XS Presented at SIR-UK Conference Dublin, Ireland, June 2008 © Tom Shriver, DataVisor 2008

4 Progress of this Presentation u First, a Show of Hands: Who’s converted to SIRxs? u Lots of new features I/we haven’t tried n Please join in with your experience u For the Un-Converted: What are you afraid of? u Thursday should be a good time to explore details of conversion and potentials of SIRxs

5 Personal Experience u Using for special work since 2005 Import & CSV Save File for long header names u Converted First Production database 2007 u At DCC / Columbia U. n New Databases being developed in SIRxs n Slow (methodical) conversions of existing databases o13 Total SIRxs databases o 7 New o 6 Converted o35 To Go u DataVisor n Conversion of Generic Products: Occassional Surprises

6 Long & Special SIR Names u At Columbia still Standardizing on 8 char names n Controlled Testing on New databases Conversions from other db formats (eg Access, SAS) u DataVisor n Long names for Output; Short for Database operations n DV Products: DVPainter & DVSchema help enforce standardization on 8 char names u General Experience n Good but not extensive n Amazing number of dependencies (eg PQL) in local “utility” programs

7 String Length  New “Default” STRING LENGTH is 32 u Sometimes affects existing application definitions u Similarly: Treatment of String System Globals SIR2002 global DBNAME padded to 8 characters SIRxs global DBNAME trimmed

8 Master u During our Transition Period n Found several “bugs” Mostly regarding new Journaling Capabilities Received several Master Updates December-May u Still Awaiting “File Based” Concurrency Manager

9 Journaling in SIRxs u The Change I was most anticipating u Later Presentation & Discussion

10 SIRxs User Environment Settings  SIR.INI n Now (Windows) stored in \Documents & Settings\... Great improvement for end users viz a viz permissions u Additional Settings n Sizes of things (eg dialog lists)

11 Schema in XS u Common Var Definitions n RECORD SCHEMA 0 CIR u Automatic I/O Column Assignments  WRITE SCHEMA by Variable  BDI “ BLANK as UNDEFINED ” n Saves a User Defined Missing Value  New Date Formatting: “E” for “Exact” on input DATE MYDATE (‘EMMiDDiYYYY’) u Standard Vars u Encryption

12 PQL Enhancements (1) u As always, many enhancements n PQL Output Procedures oStandardization of options oLong Names & “AS” for output names oXML PROCESS CASE with expressions (e.g. COUNT, SAMPLE ) n Functions oMostly to support new Features oSYSTEM(81) hot off the press “Corruption Flag On?” oCLIPSET(string_to_copy_to_clipboard) n Interactive Debugger n PQL Forms oSome added functionality

13 PQL Enhancements (2) u PQL Dialogs & Controls Many new Object Types SLIDER, TREE, SPIN, ComboBox, PROGRESS Font & GUI object color control ( EDIT, LABEL, LIST, etc) BUTTON with IMAGE rather than text prompt n IMAGE: FILL & CENTER u Demonstration: n Color Coded Fields on Data Screens n Multi-Line Prompts in Screen n Tabbed Page Navigation

14 PQL Enhancements (3)  WINDOW (MainMenu) n New Look/Feel to some SIR MainMenu Options TIMER Control (hot off the press) oENABLE TIMER n oDISABLE TIMER oTimer Message ID is -999 oNo MESSAGE TIMER block (as in PQL dialog) u PQL SERVER