Getting Started

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Getting Started

Introduction

SIR/XS is a comprehensive database management and application development system. It helps you to organise and store data, to process and manage that data and to produce reports and other outputs. You can use SIR/XS to build complete applications.

If you have never used SIR/XS before, this is the right place to start. The material here is an introduction to SIR/XS which is intended to help you understand the software and to start to do some useful work.

Licensing

SIR/XS has a licence manager and you must have the appropriate licence code in order to use the software. This is checked each time you start the system. If you do not have a licence, please contact SIR to register at:

Email: info@sir.com.au
Web: http://www.sir.com.au

If your licence is about to expire, the system warns you and allows you a period of grace to get a new licence.

Introduction

When you start SIR/XS, you see the main SIR/XS window. This consists of a title bar, a main menu and toolbar at the top, a large scrollable output area in the middle and a message and progress area at the bottom.

The Default Main Menu

The title bar displays the name of the application, the default database (if any) and, if concurrent database access is being used, the name of the controlling master process.

The menu (and subsequent sub-menus and dialogs) is the main way of interacting with SIR/XS. (Note. These menus and dialogs are all written in VisualPQL and the source of all programs is included on the system procedure file and can be altered or replaced by custom built menus.)

Select a choice from any menu with the arrow keys, with a mouse or other pointing device or with underlined "hot keys" (use Alt-letter in the standard way) or by any indicated control key. Some of the frequently used items can also be activated from the toolbar.

Return to a previous menu by pressing Esc.

Menu items may pull down further menus (indicated with a small arrow), may display a dialog which you fill in or may take an immediate action. Some actions may generate output. This is displayed in an output window which can be scrolled (up/down/left/right) and is used for remarks, messages and screen listings. The amount of remarks, commands and other internally generated messages can be controlled through session options. You can select and cut from the output window and can print it, save it or clear it. If your session produces more output than it can hold, earliest lines are discarded.

When you start SIR/XS, you may get a 'Welcome to SIR/XS' dialog asking what you would like to do. This allows you to create a new database or to connect to an existing database. Press Close to use SIR/XS without a database. Check "Don't show me this again" to suppress this. It can be set to display again in the preferences dialog.

The standard SIR/XS interface has the following menu structure:

File

The file menu can connect to database files and controls the contents of the session window.

New... Creates a new SIR/XS Database.
Open... Opens an existing SIR/XS Database or other file.
Save Session... Saves current settings, globals and buffers.
Restore Session... Restores settings, globals and buffers.
Clear Output Clears the output window.
Save Output... Saves the output window as a text file.
Find in Output... Search the output for a string.
Select All... Select all output.
Print... Prints the output window.
DBMS Command... Allows you to enter SIR/XS commands or run commands typed into the main window.
Exit Exits the system.

Data

The data menu provides utilities to view and update the data in the database.

SpreadSheet... Displays data in spreadsheet style.
Forms... Creates and executes SIRForms data entry screens.
File Dump... Creates text file of data (input for File Input).
File Input... Updates database from text file.
List File... Creates detailed report of database contents.

Procedure

The procedure menu allows you to produce outputs specifying various selection criteria.

Export Data... Exports SIR/XS data to other packages.
Report... Produces reports.
Tabulation... Produces cross tabulations.
Statistics... Produces descriptive statistics on a single variable.
Graph... Produces 2D or 3D graphs using two or three variables.
More Procedures...Run previously saved user procedures.
Open... Open a previously saved procedure.
Preferences... Change some of the procedure output settings.

Program

The program menu allows you to manage your VisualPQL programs and other text members and files.

Members... Edit, run and manage procedure file members.
Search Members... Search members by attribute or contents.
Compare Procfiles... Compare two procfiles by contents, name or other attributes.
Files... Edit or run files
Dialog Painter... Invoke the dialog painter to update dialog based programs.
PQLForms Painter... Creates and executes PQLForms data entry screens.
Debug... Start the GUI debugger on a previously debug-compiled routine.

Database

The database menu allows you to manage databases. It provides backup and restore facilities and contains dialogs for modifying and displaying the structure of a database.

New... Creates a new SIR/XS Database. (Same as File/New...).
Open... Opens an existing SIR/XS Database or other file. (Same as File/Open...).
Control Databases...Controls connections to SIR/XS databases.
Export... Save the database in a machine independent text format.
Unload... Save the whole database or a subset in internal format.
Journal Upload... Save the journal as a machine independent text file.
Journal Restore... Apply journal updates to earlier version of database from journal in internal format.
Download Journal... Apply journal updates to earlier version of database from journal in portable text format.
Verify Database... Perform integrity checks on database.
Itemise File... List contents of internal format unload, subset or journal.
Reload Database... Create database from internal format copy.
Import Database... Create database from portable text copy.
Delete Database... Delete a database from disk.
Database Settings... View or modify database properties.
Record Schema... View or modify record definitions.
Secondary Indexes... View or modify record index definitions.
Import Records... Create and populate record from ODBC or SIR/XS SQLServer.
Write Schema... Write database definition as commands or report to file.
List Stats Produces report of database statistics.

Tabfile

The tabfile menu allows you to manage the connection and creation of SIR/XS table files.

Control Tabfiles... Controls connections to SIR/XS tabfiles.
Connect Tabfile... Open an existing tabfile.
Create Tabfile... Create a new tabfile.
Verify Tabfile... Perform integrity checks on tabfile.
SirSQL Invoke SirSQL.

Settings

The settings menu allows you to view and change various session settings.

File Attributes... Shows files and internal names.
Global Variables... Shows global variables and values.
Preferences... Controls settings such as preferred editor, html browser and font sizes.
Master Settings... Controls concurrent database access.
Buffers... View, add or delete memory buffers.
List Remarks Toggle listing of remarks.
List Commands Toggle listing of commands.

Help

The help menu provides information on using SIR/XS.

Contents Open the main contents page.
Index Open the alphabetic index.
Search... Lets you search for any word.
What's New Display information about new features in this release.
About SIR... Gives licence and version details.
SIR on the Web Opens the SIR web page at www.sir.com.au

Database

The database is the primary means of storing data in SIR/XS. There can be any number of different databases each with multiple types of records. A single database can hold up to 4,095 different record types and there can be over 2,000,000,000 actual records in a database. Records can be grouped into Cases - a set of related records.

A record consists of up to 4,095 variables and each record can hold up to 32,000 characters of data. Each variable has a name and the database stores various information about the data. This can include such things as the format for dates or times, lists of allowable values and definitions of coding systems.

The description of a database and all the record types is known as the Database Schema. This can be created interactively through menus and modified as you extend your database design.

Schemas can be entered through screens or defined with schema definition commands.

Database Schema Settings

These result in an identical database, one is done interactively, the other is done by creating commands and running them in a similar way to a program.

You can modify the schema definition. SIR/XS allows alterations to the design even after the data is loaded without having to unload and reload data.

A SIR/XS session can connect to multiple databases and switch between databases making one database the default. Programs and utilities operate on the default database.

Whenever data is updated, it is maintained according to the dictionary definitions. Every SIR/XS component that accesses data from a database does so through the database manager which means that the data is always verified and conforms to the data dictionary.

Data is always referenced by name. Programs do not know anything about the physical organisation of data. Queries and applications are independent of the physical structure of data.

Utilities

Data can be loaded from existing files through a set of Batch Data Input utilities. There are also utilities to help manage a database. These provide statistics on the database, make backup copies of your data and allow you to move data to different computers.

Master

You can control concurrent updates to a database by multiple users by running a database server known as SirMaster.

Tabfiles

A second means of storing data is through tabfiles which hold relational tables.

Tabfiles can be created by SQL with the SELECT command and by VisualPQL with the SAVE TABLE procedure as well as directly through definition commands.

VisualPQL

The heart of the application development system is the fourth generation application development language called VisualPQL (Procedural Query Language). This is a full programming language which includes a built-in set of data reporting and statistical procedures. You can use VisualPQL for simple tasks, such as producing a report, and for complex tasks, such as building full applications.

Programs and other routines are managed as part of the database known as the Procedure File. Developing programs requires the use of a text editor which can be any editor you want.

The procedure menu allows you to generate VisualPQL programs for a number of standard tasks without writing any code.

SirSQL

SQL (Structured Query Language) is part of SIR/XS and is an industry standard language with a menu interface or an English-like set of commands.

SirSQL

The primary use of SirSQL is to retrieve and display data interactively. SirSQL has many enhancements to simplify the interactive use of SirSQL and to take advantage of SIR/XS database structures.

PQLFORMS

PQLForms is a facility to generate a set of screens and program logic in VisualPQL that can then be used to enter, modify and view data interactively, one record at a time. A form is a set of linked screens, defined using commands or using a screen painter. These define what variables are on each screen, how they are displayed and edited, how a screen looks, and how screens are linked together. Once a form has been developed, it can be used by many people for data entry or for querying data.

Building an Application

A typical set of tasks to create an application is:

Design a database and create the database in SIR/XS
Load any data from existing serial files using Batch Data Input utilities
Create and test report, analysis and enquiry programs using VisualPQL
Create data entry screens using PQLForms
Create dialogs and menus to link everything using VisualPQL

SQL is primarily an end user tool to access data interactively and typically does not require customisation.

COMPANY Database

Start SIR/XS either by clicking on an icon or by entering the program name Sir.exe.

This starts the system which brings up the main menu.

There is a small sample database shipped with the software which also includes a number of example programs. This is the COMPANY database.

If you want to look at or run any of the examples and the COMPANY database has not already been created, you can easily recreate it as follows:

To create a new COMPANY database in a directory of your choice, change to your directory and start SIR/XS.
Select Import Database from the Database/Recover menu and select the COMPANY.EXP file and press OK. This rebuilds the database. The export file COMPANY.EXP is a text file that contains all the commands and data needed to define the database.

Company Import

When opening a database that already exists, you require the database name and any passwords that have been defined.

For the Company database, COMPANY is the database name, COMPANY is the database password, HIGH is read security, HIGH is write security.

This information can be supplied as parameters on the execution statement as
SIR DB=COMPANY PW=COMPANY RS=HIGH WS=HIGH
to avoid re-typing each time.

Having attached a database, a first task might be to retrieve some data and for this you may want to use VisualPQL.