Important Information



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Next: CBB Tutorial Up: CBB Check Book Balancer Previous: Introduction

Important Information

Contacting the Author

If you would like to contact me, you may send email to curt@sledge.mn.org. I will do my best to respond in a timely manner and address your issue or concern.

Availability

The current version of CBB is always available via anonymous ftp from:

    ftp.me.umn.edu:/pub/finance/cbb-[version].tar.gz

Prerequisites

CBB is written in Perl and Tcl/Tk. These need to be installed on your system before you can can continue. Note, I have tried to make CBB compatible with both tk3.6 and tk4.0 as well as perl4 and perl5. If you notice any problems or incompatabilities please let me know.
Tcl and Tk are available via anonymous ftp from:

    ftp.cs.berkeley.edu:/ucb/tcl/[tcl7.4.tar.Z tk4.0.tar.Z]
    ftp.neosoft.com:/pub/tcl/distrib/[tcl7.4.tar.gz tk4.0.tar.gz]
    ftp.uu.net:languages/tcl/[tcl7.4.tar.Z tk4.0.tar.Z]

Perl is available via anonymous ftp from:

    prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/perl-5.***.tar.gz
    ftp.cs.umn.edu:/pub/gnu/perl-5.***.tar.gz

Installation

Untar the distribution file and cd to the newly created directory.

Type make install.

Specify the location of perl and wish and specify where you would like the executables and associated files installed.

Migrating Data Files to Version 0.60a or Later

 

If you are upgrading from a pre-0.60a version, you will need to upgrade your data files as well.

The initial versions of CBB saved its data in an ASCII text file with the fields delimited by the `:' character. However, not too far into this CBB project (at version 0.50a I believe) I switched my thinking and decided to take advantage of perl's dbm support. This has one primary advantage. Any changes made to the data file are immediately saved. This also has some disadvantages. It tends to close off the data file so it can only be manipulated from within CBB. This is good from a ``data encapsulation'' stand point, but it suddenly becomes a problem if the data file needs to be manipulated in a way which CBB doesn't support. Another point to note is that because perl is so good at slurping in text files, and because of certain constraints imposed by the Tk front end, using the dbm format did not provide any speed advantage. In fact, for certain operations I noted a speed decrease.

With the above observations in mind, I decided to come full circle and return to saving CBB data files in an open ASCII format by default. The astute among you may observe that ASCII files have one major disadvantage. They are only saved at the user's request. So, one hapless user working all day without saving + one unexpected power outage, one press of the reset button, or one of any other creative ways people invent to destroy their data = trouble. To counter this problem, I created an auto save feature. At regular intervals, if the current data file has been modified, it is saved to a temporary file. This greatly reduces the risk of data loss stupidity or acts of God-or acts of God in response to our stupidity.

For those of you who have grown to love the dbm format, do not despair. In the spirit of openness I have decide to support dbm data files as well-although in a slightly modified form.

Data File Format

The new ASCII data file format is defined to be one record per line with the fields delimited by the <tab> character. The new dbm data file format is of the form <key> <record> where CBB assigns each record a unique key. The dbm record is identical to the ASCII record: a single line of text with the fields delimited by the <tab> character.

Migration Procedure

(Hopefully this doesn't give any one a migrain.)
I have provided a perl script to automate the data file migration, migrate-to-0.60a.pl. It is located in the contrib subdirectory of the distribution-dir directory.

  1. Backup your data file directory. Do it now!!!
  2. cd distribution-dir/contrib
  3. migrate-to-0.60a.pl <data-dir>
  4. Choose whether you want to migrain (oops I mean migrate) to ASCII or dbm format. Type ascii or dbm. I personally recommend using the ASCII format, unless you have strong convictions otherwise.

The migrate script will perform the following tasks:

  1. Convert categories file from `:' delimited to <tab> delimited, and save it in an ASCII format.
  2. Remove any *.bal.dir and *.bal.pag. These have always been redundant from CBB's perspective.
  3. Rename all $file.txn.dir to $file.dir, and all $file.txn.pag to $file.pag. This makes for a slightly more pleasant naming scheme.
  4. Open each $file.dir and convert all transactions from `:' delimited to <tab> delimited.
  5. If migrating to ASCII, save file to ASCII CBB format and delete dbm file.

When the script has finished, your data files should be all set for your new version of CBB. Start up CBB and poke around your files a bit. If you notice any problems, let me know immediately-and be glad you backed up all your data like I suggested earlier.

Recent Additions to CBB

The following is a quick run down of some of the more notable recent additions to CBB.

Mailing List

I have been maintaining an informal list of people who are especially interested in this program. I try to keep this group up to date on the current happenings of CBB. If you would like to be included on this list, simply send me a note and ask to be place on the list. My email address is curt@sledge.mn.org



next up previous contents
Next: CBB Tutorial Up: CBB Check Book Balancer Previous: Introduction




Fri Aug 11 06:22:37 CDT 1995