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

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

3. 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
First, a Show of Hands: Who’s converted to SIRxs?
Lots of new features I/we haven’t tried
Please join in with your experience
For the Un-Converted: What are you afraid of?
Thursday should be a good time to explore details of conversion and potentials of SIRxs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

12. PQL Enhancements (1) As always, many enhancements
PQL Output Procedures
Standardization of options
Long Names & “AS” for output names
XML
PROCESS CASE with expressions (e.g. COUNT, SAMPLE)
Functions
Mostly to support new Features
SYSTEM(81) hot off the press “Corruption Flag On?”
CLIPSET(string_to_copy_to_clipboard)
Interactive Debugger
PQL Forms
Some added functionality

13. PQL Enhancements (2) PQL Dialogs & Controls Demonstration:
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
IMAGE: FILL & CENTER
Demonstration:
Color Coded Fields on Data Screens
Multi-Line Prompts in Screen
Tabbed Page Navigation

14. PQL Enhancements (3) WINDOW (MainMenu) PQL SERVER
New Look/Feel to some SIR MainMenu Options
TIMER Control (hot off the press)
ENABLE TIMER n
DISABLE TIMER
Timer Message ID is -999
No MESSAGE TIMER block (as in PQL dialog)
PQL SERVER