DHES

Today's trivia question...

Would anyone out there really need more that 99,000 lines in the stock table and if so,why?

Remember, this is only a trivia question.

Dale

Dale,

I think if someone has a store that sells more then 99000 different products could afford a more expensive system that would work for them. I understand that some people might own a small hardware store or small computer repair shop that has small parts such as bolts, nuts and washers that might need more then 13000 product lines, but i don't think that they should need more then 99000, that is a lot of products and think that that would be very sufficint for a small store.But as you and i both know that if you made it 99000 some people would want more and more.

The Answer is : No Need To Super Size the Stock Table.

I've used DHPOS in 5 different retail stores and I think the store with the most items maxed out at about 2,500. I'm sure many users aren't even using the Stock Table feature. Given the overal scope of DHPOS I think the 13,000 is fine and already caters to 99% of its users. The other 1% would probably do fine with something between 13,001 and 99,000. Only some fractional part of 1% would be served by going bigger than 99,000. I don't think it would be worth the bloat to the POS to capture this small audience.
Aside from the POS this also affects the Inventory and Recieving programs that would need to be reworked. The Inventory program works fine for the POS with a few thousand items but I can't image if the data entry was the same for 99,000+!

It looks like 99,000 will not be happening. For one thing it took 20 minutes to re-index the stock table. However I am well on the way to 26,000 items. Of course there will be a size to speed trade off. This will be pretty much un-noticeable when ringing up a sale but will be fairly slower when sorting for reports even if you are still using only 1,000 lines in the stock table because the program will be doing a disk sort instead of a memory sort.

This will require extensive testing before it can be released. Volunteers should sign up now. I will provide you with a 26,000 line stock table.

BTW, old stock tables will be upgraded to the new format just by going to the stock table feature of the POSCONFG.EXE program to have it re-indexed. This is automatic, there is no control to set.

Dale

[Bruce peeking out the door checking that Dale isn't in ear shout]
Dale must have learned some lessons from his partners at AT&T marketing with his Prodigy fiasco.
Notice how he makes the idea of slowing our computers down sound like a good thing!
He sells it as feature we want to have! A selling point that we can't do without! A feature we should all embrace!!!
And we don't have to do anything. It will just magically happen! Yeaaaa!!!!

[Bruce sees Dale coming]
Hey Dale. Sign me up! I'll take the first copy!

Bruce,

Well it will not be so slow that you will be able to notice contental drift while waiting for a report to sort. For the most part, if you are sorting a couple of thousand lines, it will be almost as speedy as the 13,000 line version of the program. So if you are using 2000 lines of the stock table in the past, and in the future, you will need a stop watch to measure the difference.

But if you absolutely need 26,000 lines for a medium sized book store, hardware store, or grocery then the lines will be there for you. The good news (from Bruce's point of view), if you have a large book store, hardware store, or grocery then you are still screwed.

Dale

I'll take a scoop of slowness too Dale, Sign me up.

I will test it as well Dale

I will Also Test Dale

There is a test file here (new file, see below) Well actually when you unzip it is a whole pile of files since it is a full download.

DO NOT put it in your current POS folder. Create a new C:\26000 folder and unzip it there. In addition to all the program files there is also a 26000.POS file and a 26000 stock table. the stock table has 24000 stock numbers numbered from 1 to 24000. They are in random order and placed randomly through the 26000 lines in the stock table. This means that there are blank lines randomly placed through he stock table.

I need massive testing on this, you need to test everything since almost every file has changes. Although the files that need the most testing are the stock table itself and the reports.

In the stock table use the [F5] part of the program to add, sort, import, export, etc. Particularly lines after 13,000.

In the reports you will have to add sales data to the stock table first. You do not need to test sales reports, only merchandise reports will be affected.

Now test everything else, and I mean EVERYTHING. Sales, voids, tickets, receiving, inventory, purchase, gift cards, kitchen, and on and on.

Have fun, report back.

Tomorrow I may have a stock table with random sales data.

Dale

Here is a much more extensive stock table for testing. It has all the columns fill in and 26 each categories and vendors plus 6 tax rates. This file contains 26000.POS, 26000.TBL, and 26000.IDX

(New file, see below)

Have fun, report back.

Now I have to work on a history file.

Reports DONOT Work only Lists descripitions then zeros

CB,

Which stock table are you using? If you are using the one I posted last night it has no sales in it so do data to make a report. If you are doing an inventory report with the file from last night and select to show "zero inventory items" then all items have a zero inventory, it works, Ta-Da.

But it seems that the stock table files I posted earlier today also had the problem of having unreasonably large values for the items that were sold causing the reports program to experience a quick death when trying to handle data that large. So I made a new stock table with values more in line with this reality. Even then there were "overflow" errors so I changed the reports program to handle somewhat larger values.

You can do a full download here (new file, see below) which is a self-extracting file when run (Remember to download first to your 26000 folder.) This is version 7.04b26.

You can download just the stock table from here http://keyhut.com/26000s.exe but then you wil not get the new reports program

Dale,
Downloaded 26K POS and the table with data on 4-19-11 aprx 11pm Eastern.
(New files, see below)

The N. Inventory by Stock #
O. Inventory by Category
reports show approximately 1,978 row items that show only 2 columns of zeros before showing the actual inventory.
for either; 1. Include 0 inventory value items. and 2. Exclude 0 items

Selecting choice 2 to Exlude 0 items produces a report that does have items with zero values.

Similar is the P. Inventory by Vendor
report shows approximately 79 blank rows before showing actual inventory.
for either; 1. Include 0 inventory value items. and 2. Exclude 0 items
Selecting choice 2 to Exlude 0 items produces a report that does have items with zero values.

The R. Inventory value report causes the program to crash as soon as its selected with the following error msg.

Finally, a bug report. Thank you Bruce.

They have been fixed and the new full download is here (new files, see below)

It is version 7.04c26 in the POS.EXE and POSCONFG.EXE program files.

Dale