Excel question

[anotherdave]

I have never done anything with databases, but I was looking over the single delimited files(and got the information on the set up of them) and imported them to Excel. I thought that I could play around with the info in Excel. But there seems to be a limit to the number of columns excel will give me(1100+) which is not enough for a .drf file. So much stuff is missing. I was wondering if there is there a simple way for me to get to just the columns I want, or to eliminate them from the drf file and then bring them in. Or should I just learn Access!

Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

On an unrelated topic, someone (I think socalfan?) mentioned a while back that Kelso Sturgeon has a new book. I haven't been able to find it anywhere. Does anyone know the title?

[Tom]

There is a program called infotran that allows you program which fields you want to use from the comma delimeted drf file. It is free and on the BRIS BB-don't know about the webpage. It is pretty easy to use but takes a little time to write the program initially. There
are other ways to do this but I am not that familiar with them. If you don't get a better answer, try infotran and I will be happy to help you with it. Or if you can't find it, I will send you a copy.

Tom 523

[mhrussell]

Anotherdave-

Excel limits you to 254 columns which is why you need to download the "multi-file" formatted, comma delimited data files from BRIS instead of the single file format. Once you extract the compressed file, you will get four files. The format structure is given in the Library section on the BRIS website. You can then easily import these four files into Excel.

I just went through this myself and it works very well.
Good luck.

Regards,

[Tom]

Thanks for the tip-I didnt know that about the multi files.
Iwill give that at try, too.

Tom 524

[anotherdave]

mhrussell

Thanks for the tip. I'm going to give the multi files a try.

[thoroughbred]

The Basic programming language is really easy to learn.
If you can invest a bit of time to learn it, you can have complete control over the things you want to do. You will, for example, be able to import the entire DRF file, and pick and choose which data you want, and which data you want to be placed in Excel.

I was fortunate in finding a book, many years ago, which in simple language, took me from scratch and showed me how to program in Basic. It was:

Basic Primer for the IBM PC & XT
by Bernd Enders and Bob Petersen,
published by the Waite Group.

You can see by the title that the book is probably out of print by now. If you can't find it, I'm sure that there are equivalent simple, straight forward books out there that can accomplish the same thing.

The time invested in learning Basic has proven to be very valuable over the following years for programming various things relating to horse racing.

To illustrate. The core of your program may be as simple as the following. (Of course, there are other things you have to take care of in the program, but the core is the following.)

FOR N=1 TO 1435
INPUT #1, TEMP$(N)
NEXT


This piece of programming will set up a file called TEMP$,
(you can name it anything else you desire), which will input the 1435 comma delimited items associated with a horse.

Then if you need, say the seventh data item, you will find it as TEMP$(7)

[NoDayJob]

If you are planning to learn a language Visual Basic is good. It's fairly easy to learn and to debug. Lots of books and websites on it. Another one is Python (good for multiple data bases). "Learn to Use Python" by Gauld ISBN 0-201-70938-4 is excellent for beginners. -NDJ

[thoroughbred]

Originally posted by NoDayJob
If you are planning to learn a language Visual Basic is good. It's fairly easy to learn and to debug. Lots of books and websites on it. Another one is Python (good for multiple data bases). "Learn to Use Python" by Gauld ISBN 0-201-70938-4 is excellent for beginners. -NDJ

NoDayJob,

Wouldn't you agree that learning Basic is far easier for a beginner than learning Visual Basic?

[Tom]

Can you run just plain basic in the dos window of Win98?
I used to use basic a lot and would love to have that capability again. Can I just copy my old basic program into a file and use it as is?

Also, in you example, would I just keep adding lines for each field I want to import? Such as

Import #1, Temp$(1)
Import #23,Temp$(2)
Import #45,Temp$(3).....

Thanks


Tom 535

[thoroughbred]

Originally posted by Tom
Can you run just plain basic in the dos window of Win98?
I used to use basic a lot and would love to have that capability again. Can I just copy my old basic program into a file and use it as is?

Also, in you example, would I just keep adding lines for each field I want to import? Such as

Import #1, Temp$(1)
Import #23,Temp$(2)
Import #45,Temp$(3).....

Thanks


Tom 535

To answer your questions:

After I got to know Basic a bit, I then went on to Microsoft's QuickBasic, because it had a good Basic compiler.

If you compile your program, it becomes an executable file, i.e., one with a ".exe" extension. So you can run it anywhere an executable file can be run. That includes MS-DOS, and from a window within Windows 98.

I would have to know many details about your old Basic program before I would be able to hazard a guess as to whether you would be able to use it "as is."

Once you have used the FOR .....NEXT procedure in your program to import all the data, (or similar commands which can accomplish the same thing), those data do not have to be individually imported. If, for example, your program next included the command:

PRINT TEMP$(4)

then the fourth field of datum, of the BRIS single file format, comma delimited DRF file, which happens to be Post Position, would be printed to your screen.

[Dave Schwartz]

DOS BASICs are certainly easier...

The problem with anything DOS-based is that it is getting more difficult to keep DOS programs running under more advanced versions of Windows.

Even our own program (HSH) calls a few DOS batch files and Win2k struggles with those sometimes. XP will likely make things worse.

The jump to Windows programming is not that much more difficult, but there are some conceptual changes that the programmer must deal with. I resisted the jump to Windows myself... didn't write anything in Windows until 1996... Now it is second nature. I almost can't remember writing DOS code.


FWIW-

Regards,
Dave Schwartz

[hbo2t]

Another Dave,

I believe the book is called "They fix horseraces, don't they?"

Sorry, the mailer found my roundfile rather quickly.

[Some_One]

Hey Dave, from what I heard, WinXP won't be able to run any DOS programs at all. If true, would that mean HSH wouldn't be able to run on XP?