INVENTORY CONTROL PROGRAM, INVENT (THE POOR MAN'S DBASE) USER GUIDE

This program operates in conjunction with the file INVENT.DAT which is assumed
to be present on the same disk. If this file doesn't exist, INVENT will create
the file and fill it with 200 empty records. At the present time, INVENT is set
up to handle an inventory of a maximum of 200 records (const max = 200). The
program could be changed to accommodate a larger maximum, limited only by the
memory of the machine. Enlarging the maximum inventory size in memory will not
render previously generated disk files unreadable, since the disk file, written
on exit from the program holds only those records which contain non-null (i.e.
non-empty) Descriptions,

Each record contains four fields: a Description of up to 20 characters, a
Price, the number On Hand, and a Reorder level. In addition, each record is
assigned an Item number which is used to identify it. When a record is
displayed, the program calculates as Value the product of the number Onhand
times the Price. The Item number and the Value are not part of the record and
are not stored on disk.

At turn-on and at the end of every operation the program displays a list of
records. In general, the screen can display only a portion of the inventory, 16
items. If there are more than 16 records in the inventory, the screen will
display a row of dots indicating the presence of more data above or below (or
both) the displayed portion. Thus, the user is looking at the data through a
window; the user may move the window up or down by typing the letters 'T' (Top)
to move up or 'B'(Bottom) to move down.

The total number of items in the inventory is displayed at the bottom of the
record display. The total inventory value is calculated at turn-on and is
displayed at the bottom of the inventory listing; this number is recalculated
whenever any operation is executed that changes its value.

At the bottom of the display the program presents a Menu of options. The user
selects the desired operation by typing the first letter of the option. The
available options are:

'A' APPEND: This is used to add new records to the inventory. After one
record has been entered, the program goes directly to the read
in of the next record, so as to facilitate entering several new
inventory records at once. The program exits APPEND when a '' is
entered in the Description field.

'M' MODIFY: This option is used to modify an existing record, e.g. to change
a price. In the Modify mode, hitting will leave the field
unchanged, so only those fields that are to be changed need to
be typed in. The program exits MODIFY after one record has been
changed.

'U' USE: Subtracts items from the field OnHand. If the user attempts to
Use more items than the number Onhand, the program refuses to
execute the order and flashes a warning to the user. If the
number On Hand falls below the Reorder level, the program
flashes a warning and causes an asterisk to appear alongside the
Reorder number in the display.

'R' RESTOCK: Adds to the field OnHand. The program removes the asterisk if
the resupply is sufficient to bring the number OnHand above the
Reorder level.




- 1 - (c) 1985 - John Fox






INVENTORY CONTROL PROGRAM, INVENT (The Poor Man's dBase) USER GUIDE


After a MODIFY, USE or RESTOCK operation, the top item displayed will normally
be the item that has been changed; however if the item is near the end of the
inventory, it may appear somewhere in the middle of the display since the
program always displays 16 records.


'D' DELETE: Removes a record from the inventory. The display will normally
start at the next item after the item deleted.

'S' SORT: Sorts the inventory alphabetically on the Description field.
Sort is required when new records have been Appended or possibly
when the Description of an item has been Modified.

'P' PRINT: Prints the entire inventory on the line printer.

'Q' QUIT: Writes the modified inventory back to disk and exits to system.

This program was originally written and released to the public domain by:

Mr. John Fox
103 Gedney #4D
Nyack, NY 10960

It is being distributed with the permission of the author. It may be freely
distributed to Turbo-Pascal Users so long as it is not sold.































- 2 - (c) 1985 - John Fox



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