Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
7. The online account display
Looking at the account number file report but you may ask why we didn't save
paper and display the fields on the screen. To save the destruction of trees for paper for
our reports, our system will create the report but not actually print it to paper. Instead it
will display data on the screen. You can get a full report printed but it will cost you. The
intent is to make the cost so prohibitive that people will think twice about getting it on
paper. For a lesser amount you can have just the page you need printed. This will cause
people to think about the reports they request and be more concerned for the environment.
At the end of the chapter, I will talk briefly about going paperless.
Obviously we need to look at data on files but we can do that without looking at a
piece of paper. I never want to read a novel online but data in the office is an entirely
different story. How to get the report on the screen will depend on the system you have so
I won't get into the details. We can peek at records on the account file if we have some
kind of inquiry program online. Since our file is indexed, we can look at a specific record
if we know the account number.
Before getting into the actual program, let me talk about program specifications.
These are nothing more a detailed summary of what the program is supposed to do. They
can be very long, encompassing not only what is to take place but also how that should be
done. On the other hand specifications can be brief, to the point and it is up to the
programmer to do the rest. There's a joke in the computing business about specs written
on the back of a napkin and I'm sure that some have used that medium.
Our specifications can be written as
Write a program to display account file fields based on the account number
.
It could also be
Transfer the original account file report to the screen but limit it to one record at
a time depending on the account number input.
Vague as these specs may be, in either case you get the idea of what needs to be
done and how it is to be done is up to the programmer as well as where to place the fields
on the screen. There's quite a bit of freedom in getting the data to appear but you can
understand that we don't want a cluttered screen and it should be user friendly. After all,
we don't want to do the programming and later have some person say they are not happy
with the way it looks. Actually, our goal is to have the user be so thrilled that she holds a
party to celebrate the occasion.
In order to get data on the screen we need the keyword,
screen
.
The computer monitor in most cases has 24 rows and 80 columns to display characters.
Reducing the size of the characters can increase the number of rows and columns on the
screen, but you need to be able to read the data. In order to print
Account Number Inquiry
on the first line and centered we need the line,
