DHES

This weekend I put in a small wireless network for someone running 2 DHPOS terminals and linking them to a 'back office' PC for backing up and stuff.

The new owner asked if the global stock file could be created by scanning in their products on the 2 terminals and I said, 'No', but I had a little bit of a think afterwards.

I then did an experiment and managed to combine 2 separate stock files via the export/import cut and paste system built into DHPOS - bit fiddly but with care it worked.

I assume that the system then automatically creates a new index file but before I go and tell this person and anyone else in the future who might ask the same question, am I right in my assumption and if the process is done carefully (as I did) is this a valid way of creating a stock file?

If all is well this means that you can use as many PCs as you want to create your initial stock file, so long as every machine has a stock file on it with the right categories in the correct number sequence - a boon for anyone who has a large number of products to put up in a short time.

As usual, I seem to be replying to my own post

I noticed in Dales 'File Format' thread there's a program mentioned that will re-index the stock file.

I just edited and compiled it in QBasic and after running it, it looks to have done the trick. So it isn't automatic but it's a pretty quick job when done manually.

Well done again Dale.......the mind boggles at the extent of your foresight and versatility, and I mean that.

RollerBall,

When you enter or leave the stock table function the program will reindex the stock table. When this happens you may notice that in the center of the screen the program will count down to zero. It does this really fast and it is hard to notice but that is when the stock table is being reindexed.

The program also indexes new items as they are being added to the stock table. And whenever one register is actually accessing the stock table to read or write to it the program will lock out all the other registers until it is done.

However when one register updates the index for new items the other registers will not load the new index until the other register leaves the stock table. So it may not be the best idea to load items into the stock table from two different registers at the same time.

aha...so my manual re-indexing isn't necessary then.

No, I wasn't intending to add items into the same stock file at the same time. The idea is to have 'n' computers adding items into the same category headings of 'n' separate stock files on their 'n' respective computers (where eg n = anything from say 2 to half a dozen).

Then each of the 'n' stock files is exported as a data file, converted into a csv and all of them combined into an 'aggregated' spreadsheet which is imported back into the global stock file.

I just topped and tailed the new spreadsheet so it was the same size as the one it replaced on the global system.

That's what I did with just 2 files and it worked OK but I was just a bit worried about the indexing issue in case the global system would be unable to read the new stock file - but it appears that my fears are unfounded.

Yippee!