PALLETMANAGER

This page covers technical issues relating to the STORE module and is intended to be of assistance to technical staff. It should be emphasized that before any actions described on this page or linked pages are carried out secure copies should be taken of those files listed below which are found in the PALLETMANAGER folder (some of those listed may not exist). The files are STORFILE.DAT; STORFILE.IDX, STORFILE.DEL and WORKFILE.

How STORE Works.

The STORE module of PALLETMANAGER provides a mechanism whereby palletisation specifications can be saved to a STORE database for subsequent recall. During a PALLETMANAGER run, at the point where printouts / screen displays are selected the SAVE function saves details of the current palletisation specification to a temporary file (named WORKFILE) - up to 20 saved specifications can be held in this file at any time.

When the user exits from PALLETMANAGER the contents of the WORKFILE are merged with previously saved specifications, and if a product code matches that of a previously saved specification the user is given the opportunity to decide which should be saved.

The STORE Database is held in a numeric flat file format - this means that (say) 5000 specifications can be saved in around 10Mb of space - it might require 1000Mb if the information was held in a partially graphics format.

Merging STORE files.

Should a user / users have been using STORE on two different computers - with the software installed locally - and thus have created 2 databases which they need to merge, then details of how this might be done are covered in Appendix 1 of the Manual.

What Can Go Wrong in normal running.

The STORE mechanisms have been in use for over 20 years and has proved very reliable. However if problems do occur it is important to appreciate how best to recover from such situations.

Remember to first take copies of all files referenced below.

If a problem were to corrupt the file WORKFILE (holding the specifications saved in the last PALLETMANAGER session), then this could result in repeated error messages when entering the software (PALLETMANAGER would, on entry, detect the entries in WORKFILE and will try to merge these into the STORE database and fail). After taking a copy of WORKFILE, delete it and re-start PALLETMANAGER. At the opening menu select RETRIEVAL to ensure that the STORE database is displayed. If all is well then exit the software. It should now be possible to run PALLETMANAGER successfully but the corrupt WORKFILE should be sent to Miralis Data for examination.

If a problem were to corrupt the STORE database files then the following procedure should be followed after taking security copies of the 3 files STORFILE.DAT, STORFILE.IDX and STORFILE.DEL.

Firstly delete the files STORFILE.IDX and STORFILE.DEL Then, execute the program SA0700.EXE. If the main STORE database file (STORFILE.DAT) is OK then the two other files (which you just deleted) will be re-created and all will be well. If at any time in the past merging of STORE databases has been carried out (see link above) then during this process a message about duplicate entries may be displayed. This is normal.

If the corrupted file were to be STORFILE.DAT then it may be possible for Miralis Data staff to salvage the contents, however in general it would be best to revert to the last backup of the 3 STORFILE files.

Such a salvage operation would involve us in editing the STORFILE.DAT file using a text editor (such as notepad / wordpad), removing totally blank lines in the text file leaving blocks of records typically 8 or 16 lines in extent. Also ensuring that any null characters in the file (corruptions) are replaced by blank characters and then, after deleting STORFILE.IDX and STORFILE.DEL, executing the program SA0700.EXE. If the main STORE database file (STORFILE.DAT) is OK then the two other files (which you just deleted) will be re-created and all will be well.