MAKEMSI quickly and reliably creates MSI files in a non-programmatic way\Source CodeCommandsColumn

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The "Column" Command

Before MAKEMSI can refer to a table it needs to know some information about it. This applies to standard MSI tables or any that you might wish to create for your own uses.

This command defines a single table column for the table definition started by the "TableDefinition" command.

The order of the columns is significant and should match that of the MSI tables being defined. Note that you must follow any MSI restrictions that are in place, for example primary fields must be defined first.

This command takes these parameters:

• Column Name (positional)
  This is the name of the column. MSI Table and Column names are all case sensitive.

• TYPE (required)
  This defines the type of field as well as any length restrictions. It also defines whether or not the column can contain null values (upper case means it can).

  Some examples:

  • I2 - Short Integer (can be NULL).
  • i4 - Long integer (can't be NULL).
  • s0 - String of variable length (can't be NULL).
  • S16 - String which can be NULL and limited to 16 characters.
  • v0 - Binary field (can't be NULL).
    Binary fields place length restrictions on the values of primary keys!

  The "TableExportToIdt" command can be used to export existing tables. The "type" information for a tables column will be on the second line of each ".IDT" file.

  The format is described in "MSI.CHM" in the page titled "Column Definition Format" (available online).

  Note that for your own custom tables you will probably also wish to add entries to the "_Validation" table so as to perform as tight a validation as possible (and also preventing validation errors about missing validations!).

• KEY (optional)
  Defines whether the column is a primary key, valid values are "Y" and "N" ("N" is the default). You must define at least one column as a primary key.

Note that the above information can be obtained by exporting existing tables with "ORCA" and looking at the first 3 lines (the IDT format is relatively obvious and is poorly documented in "MSI.CHM").

Generated Column Macros

This command creates some macros which make reference to the column easier if you are writing custom VBSCRIPT code, these are:

1. MACRO: COL#.TableName.ColumnName
   This will expand to an integer representing the columns location within a record (1, 2, ...).

2. MACRO: COLSTR.TableName.ColumnName
   This will expand to a VBSCRIPT expression which refers to the columns data within a record as a string ("oRec.StringData(2)" etc). The record name can be passed as positional parameter 1 if required but the default of "oRec" is probably what you want.

3. MACRO: COLINT.TableName.ColumnName
   This will expand to a VBSCRIPT expression which refers to the columns data within a record as an integer ("oRec.IntegerData(2)" etc). The record name can be passed as positional parameter 1 if required but the default of "oRec" is probably what you want.

A simple example follows:

<$Table "Dialog">
    dim DialogNameTitle
    <$Row @Where="" @OK=^? > 0^ @Code="Y" *Title="DialogNameTitle">
          ;--- Debug stuff --------------------------------------------------
          say ""
          say "DialogName = " & <$COLSTR.Dialog.Dialog>
          say "Width      = " & <$COLINT.Dialog.Width>

          ;--- Set up the new title in the VB variable mentioned above ------
          DialogNameTitle = "[\[]" & <$COLSTR.Dialog.Dialog> & "[\]] - " & <$COLSTR.Dialog.Title>
    <$/Row>
<$/Table>

EXAMPLE

This example shows the definitions for the standard "Binary" and "File" tables:

<$TableDefinition "Binary">
   <$Column "Name"  TYPE="s72"  KEY="Y">  ;;Max 72 Characters
   <$Column "Data"  TYPE="v0">            ;;Binary field (unlimited length)
<$/TableDefinition>
<$TableDefinition "File">
   <$Column "File"        TYPE="s72"   KEY="Y">
   <$Column "Component_"  TYPE="s72">
   <$Column "FileName"    TYPE="l255">
   <$Column "FileSize"    TYPE="i4">
   <$Column "Version"     TYPE="S72">
   <$Column "Language"    TYPE="S20">
   <$Column "Attributes"  TYPE="I2">
   <$Column "Sequence"    TYPE="i2">
<$/TableDefinition>

;--- Define an internal MAKEMSI table ---------------------------------------
<$TableDefinition "MAKEMSI_FileSource">
   <$Column "File_"       TYPE="s72"   KEY="Y">
   <$Column "SourceFile"  TYPE="s255">
<$/TableDefinition>
<$TableCreate "MAKEMSI_FileSource">
<$Table "_Validation">
#(
   <$Row
            Table="MAKEMSI_FileSource"
           Column="File_"
         Nullable="N"
         KeyTable="File"
        KeyColumn="1"
         Category="Identifier"
      Description="Foreign key into the File table."
   >
#)
#(
   <$Row
            Table="MAKEMSI_FileSource"
           Column="SourceFile"
         Nullable="N"
         Category="Text"
      Description="Full name of source file."
   >
#)
<$/Table>

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