Getting Started with TRANSACT (32247-90007)

Chapter 6 107
Data Structures
Lines 4.1 and 4.2 define the marker items. Lines 5 and 7 put the markers around the items
that we want to use from the orderline set. Line 9 now uses the markers to indicate the
data item range to be used. With this implemented, at some later date we could decide that
the program also needs to retrieve order-no from the orderline set and no changes would
have to be made to line 9. Order-no would only need be added to the LIST verb between
lines 5 and 7.
In line 18.1, we can now use end-orderline as a reference to reset to and thus make the
section of code that sums the part inventory independent of the code that retrieves order
information.
Transact's dynamic data storage can be illustrated by another example. However, keep in
mind that even though data storage is dynamic, it is not boundless. This kind of program is
fun to write, but it is not the example that you want to base your future Transact
development on. In fact, this example should be viewed simply as demonstration of
Transact’s dynamic storage capabilities.