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Watch How You Use Your Booleans

With the introduction of the Boolean data type in VB4, you might be tempted to convert it to a numeric value using the Val function for storage in a database

Numeric Conversion of Strings

When dealing with numerics and strings, be advised of a couple “gotchas.” The Val() function isn’t internationally aware and will cause problems if you have users overseas. But you can’t

Simplify Boolean Variable Updates

Instead of using an If construct to set a Boolean variable, you can assign a Boolean variable to the result of any logical comparison. For example, instead of this code:

SQL Trick to Join Multiple Select Statements

Don’t overlook the UNION keyword in SQL as a way to simplify selections from multiple tables. For instance, to select the customer with the highest sales from three tables with

Hunt for Developers

Want to see a list of the developers who worked on VB5 and VB6? Try this: From VB’s View menu, select Toolbars, then Customize…. In the resulting dialog, click on

Keypress Won’t Fire When Pasting Into Text Box

Don’t put rules for validating text values or formats in the KeyPress event-use the Change event instead. If you “paste” into a text box, the KeyPress event isn’t fired and

Fast Copy of Properties between Controls

You probably already know that if you select multiple controls on a form you can use the Property Window to change one of their common property in one single operation.

Retrieve the list of SQL Server stored procedure

You can query SQL Server system tables to retrieve the list of all the stored procedure that are available for the end user and applications. The following routine extract their

Correctly restore mouse cursor

When you write lengthy procedures, it is a good habit to change the mouse cursor to an hourglass, and restore it to the original shape when the procedure exits. However,

The “Assume No Aliasing” compiler option

A procedure is said to contain aliased values if it can refer to the same memory addresses in two or more distinct ways. A typical example is the following procedure:

Vector vs. Array–the Best of Both Worlds

It’s often pointed out that the Vector class is expensive to use because all of the methods are synchronized. Java 2 has the LinkedList class, which can serve the same

Modifying Layout on Multiple Platforms

You can use the Toolkit’s getScreenSize().width to recompute the size of a component at run time. For example, if you have a Frame that is supposed to have the screen’s

Using NULL in a Query’s Where Clause

While comparing a field to NULL, a SQL query should use the IS operator in place of the “=” operator. The reason is that if the ANSI_NULLS option is On

The Order of Destructors’ Call

An object’s destructor invokes the destructors of its direct base classes and member objects. The invocation occurs in the reverse order of the construction of the subobjects. Note, however, that

Use Namespaces to Facilitate Software Version Control

Successful software projects do not end with the product’s rollout. In most projects, new versions that are based on their predecessors are periodically released. Moreover, previous versions have to be

Be Careful With Initializers in Constructors

You should use caution when automatically initializing class variables. In this example, C1 calls setVal() in its constructor, and C2, a subclass of C1, overrides the method to set a

Working With Collections

When working with collections, use an error handler to easily determine if a given key exists in the collection. If you try to access an item from a collection where

N.T. 4 Conversion

Question: Is there a painless way of converting a Novell 4.1 server to N.T. 4 without just performing a total rebuild? There are no applications running from the server but

OLE Commands for Powerbuilder to Word/Excel

Question: I was wondering if there is a list available somewhere of all the commands with their syntax for OLE? I want to manipulate Word and Excel from inside Powerbuilder

Accessing 2 or More Databases

Question: How do I access more than one database (e.g., Oracle and Access) via a Powerbuilder application? I currently have ODBC drivers for both databases, but cannot access the required