>>All reports also include the final field that is the data item for >>each row in the report. In the Request Report, you have to have the >>each requested item, no? And in the Daily Report the date that the >>requests are totalled for?
> Yes, but wouldn't it be helpful (from a generic parsing standpoint) > to have a character in the second field tell you what to expect in > the final field? If this were the case, the parser wouldn't have to > have any special knowledge about what to expect for each report, > other than what is described in the meta-data in the second field. > In this way, new reports could be added without having to do much > (if any?) modification to the parser. No, because that one data item is specific to the report. Each report has it's own type of data. Report Magic handles this (usually) without upgrade to the parser by assigning a 'column' style in each report and looking that up. Then you just need to define a new report (which you presumably need to do any way when new editions of Analog come out). > Understood, but again, IMHO, trickery could be avoided if the > meta-data in the second column contained information on how the date > is described. I suppose you could have a self-describing data-format line that described each type of data and how to handle it, but that would only be useful the first time the parser learned about the data and thereafter would not be needed (the parser could cache this information). That's not to say that the CRO couldn't use improvement, but you'll have to take that up with Stephen (and don't ask for XML :-) ). -- Jeremy Wadsack Wadsack-Allen Digital Group +------------------------------------------------------------------------ | This is the analog-help mailing list. To unsubscribe from this | mailing list, go to | http://lists.isite.net/listgate/analog-help/unsubscribe.html | | List archives are available at | http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ | http://lists.isite.net/listgate/analog-help/archives/ | http://www.tallylist.com/archives/index.cfm/mlist.7 +------------------------------------------------------------------------
