Multiple PREFIXes

[James Zukowski]

Every so often, I find myself looking at the PREFIX directive, especially the multiple "levels" of PREFIX that are available with PxPlus: PREFIX (n). I've tried to figure out how they might be used in our system to streamline certain processes, but don't come up with anything solid.

Does anyone here use these? What are some examples where they would be effective?

Thanks in advance!

(Be safe out there!)

[Mike King]

Generally you would only use a single Prefix however in order to provide a means to emulate older BB systems we provide multiple Prefix entries each representing a different disk drive.

The original BB (and Thoroughbred Basic) allowed you to logically disable and enable disk drives and some applications used this to control which set of files they were using.  We emulate this capability by allowing you to disable Prefixes where each prefix represents a different disc.

In theory, you could have PREFIX (1) being the data files used by Company A and PREFIX (2) the data files used by Company B.  You could then select which company you want to use by simply enabling and disabling the drives/prefixes.

Personally I would not use this method but some applications were designed with this in mind and to migrate these we provided this emulation.