Charles' Log: week of 15 January 2001

  1. January (Monday). 

    Flat Files
    Steve needed a way to find out if an (image) file actually exists, so he's going to try and use the net.data "flat file" (@dtwf_xxx) functions. 

    In order to do that, the FFI_PATH must be set -- this defines and restricts what directory(ies) may be searched when trying to open "flat files".  I've set this parameter in /opt/IBMHTTPD/htdocs/en_US/db2www.ini to

       FFI_PATH /opt/WebSphere/CommerceSuite/stores
    
    and stopped and (re-)started the "DEV" websphere commercesuite instance, in the hope that that causes the db2www.ini file to be read.

    This means that Steve should try and open, for example, "$(idn)/productimages/some_file_name" to see if the image file "some_file_name" for interface idn exists.

    IE 4.01
    The Danly spec calls for support for IE 4.01, a troublesome bugger.  A quick test (from my one machine at home that still has IE 4.01) shows that everything appears to work except the pop-up window that I create during new user registration to "chain" from one page to the next.  In that code, I call open.window() with a window name of "chain", and then in the form submission use TARGET="chain".  Well, IE 4 (unlike 5 or any Netscape) decides it wants to make its own "chain" window, and ignore mine.  Duh.

    This will take some thought (later on) to work around.