k5054 wrote: aught aught is naught (as said by Wilkins Micawber); I think you meant "ought".

Downloads: Generic Database Access[^] This a HUGE Codeproject article which, from the looks of things (quick scroll through the .zip content), is likely to give out many C# programming secrets wrt SQL Server (even) with no further sacrifice of time searching on your part. Generic Database Access[^]

OK, that makes sense. Thank you. TTFN - Kent

This should get you started: Open SQL database by VB .NET - .NET Framework | Microsoft Learn[^]

Given the comparisons I've been reading about MySQL and Postgres, I would never touch MySQL. Which merely mirrors the same opinion I came to more than, what, 15 years ago or more? Latest Articles: A Lightweight Thread Safe In-Memory Keyed Generic Cache Collection Service A Dynamic Where Implementation for Entity Framework

"Beware the IDEs of March SQL!" :laugh: "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer

Yeah, seen it too. In fact, it was the default for a project I worked on. The idea was that you could filter on something like ten to twenty fields and depending on which fields were set, the string concatenation added fields to the WHERE-clause. The alternative was something like WHERE (X = @X OR @X IS NULL) AND (Y = @Y OR @Y IS NULL) AND (Z = @Z OR @Z IS NULL) -- Etc. Nowadays I'd use LINQ to build such a query. Best, Sander Azure DevOps Succinctly (free eBook) Azure Serverless Succinctly (free eBook) Migrating Apps to the Cloud with Azure arrgh.js - Bringing LINQ to JavaScript

Just for clarification, does that mean my suggestion would not produce a comparable view?

with the advent of the role of data analyst , data scientist ..considering if you need humans to do this they need some way to come out with clean data.now if you train ai to do this work..and cover most use cases and teach it sql .... the new way is [Conversational Finance Demo - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqVD\_RElFnw&t=179s) Caveat Emptor. "Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long

... and one day they might get around to this[^], which has been on the TODO for well over 8 years. I'm not holding my breath, nor wanting to deride the most excellent hamsters. Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012

Sort of. The first several years I was in software development, I learned more and more, which helped me to improve code I had already written. It wasn't that my code was "stupid", but that I just learned newer and better ways. Second, as the language I use improves, it provides better ways to do things, but it is up to me to discern whether the "better way" is really better. Third, there are those team leads who are less knowledgeable and experienced, and make me rewrite code to how they think it should be done, even though I can make the clear case their way is not better. In those cases, I do what the lead says do, then inform him or her of the shortcomings it causes. In a lot of cases, they then agree (after a lot of wasted time) that I should do it the way I had it. Sometimes, though, pride gets in their way, and they make me put out the stupid code into production - problems and all.

I just deleted a lot of what I just typed. I talk to much and make it over complicated according to my wife. :) define "large" database. Charlie Gilley “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759 Has never been more appropriate.

There are (at least) two variants of the protocol. One is called RTU and has the checksum because it sends the data purely in a binary format. The other is called ASCII and as the name implies it sends the data in ASCII hexadecimal mode with two bytes for each byte of data. It has also been adapted for use with TCP and that data is sent in binary mode but it relies on the TCP packet checksum so there isn't an explicit one sent with the data. That reminds of a funny old story. Sorry, I'm an old codger and I have a million of 'em. :cool: In the late 1980s I was working on automation projects that used VAXes as controllers. We were polling a bunch of actual RTUs with a VAX-750 and the CRC calculation was taking the CPU to its knees. DEC was aware of the problem so they decided to do the CRC calculation in hardware using the table lookup method. To implement the instruction(s) required them to retrofit the CPU boards of the computer and to do that they sent out their local service representative. He proceeded to remove the CPU circuit board, which was about a two foot square, and he changed a whole bunch of wire-wrapped lines on the board. This was a bit-slice architecture minicomputer using AMD 4-bit wide chips. I was truly blown away seeing this transpire as I had never seen anything like it before or since. It worked too as we used much less of the CPU after the changes. "They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"

People use node with a straight face so I feel like I can say Domino with straight face in the same spirit here.

Sander Rossel wrote: time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time Thank you, I'm adopting that as my new life's slogan. There are no solutions, only trade-offs.    - Thomas Sowell A day can really slip by when you're deliberately avoiding what you're supposed to do.    - Calvin (Bill Watterson, Calvin & Hobbes)

Those are essential assumptions. Your summary is both correct and fairly complete. I am not going to defend a single one of those assumptions. Most certainly not. As my signature suggests. Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.

Sorry, I did not mean to offend you. And your comments are all valid, but I just thought that they would be best posted to the OP, as follow up to what I suggested. Experience (here) tells me that not everyone reads every message in a thread; even though you and I would seem to.

honey the codewitch wrote: they can't recursively decode UTF-8 without breaking the spec. I don't see how you arrive at that conclusion. honey the codewitch wrote: not .NET's place to satisfy your requirement I agree. honey the codewitch wrote: would break the spec In what way exactly? Particularly if the caller has control over whether or not it does. But you mentioned something about writing control characters in UTF-8 -- which include carriage-return, line-feed, form-feed, etc. -- so I don't understand what you meant that it would break UTF-8. Whatever situation you are trying to communicate, I am sure .net can do it already, and it doesn't "break UTF-8".