Command Driven Report Writer for Eloquence
AskPlus is a command driven report writer that works with Eloquence databases. Originally developed for the HP3000 TurboIMAGE database, AskPlus runs natively on HP-UX (Itanium and PA-Risc) servers. In 2021, support for RHEL 8.5 (and higher) was added. The AskPlus reporting language allows users to query and report data from Eloquence databases as well as most UNIX/Linux files.
More Powerful and Versatile than Query
The AskPlus language is similar to HP’s Query/iX product and Query3k from Marxmeier, and Query developers will find AskPlus easy to use. Askplus, however, offers many advanced features not available with Query.
- Use expressions (including parentheses) and date conversions when selecting, sorting and reporting data
- Compare fields: ITEM1 > ITEM2
- Support for Regular Expression pattern matching
- Support for temporary variables (registers) and arrays
- Large library of text functions
- Report from Suprtool SD files and other UNIX files
- Create delimited files
- Create SD and other binary files
- Update fields with dynamically calculated values
- Update fields based on conditions
Vital Soft provides an automatic conversion that converts Query reports to AskPlus. This program is available free to all supported customers
Download a detailed comparison here.
Visimage3 Engine
AskPlus is the reporting engine used by Visimage3. Reports developed in Visimage3 are executed natively by AskPlus on the host server.
Server Based Reporting
Designed for computing professionals and IT staff, AskPlus offers advanced, query, report and update capabilities coupled with excellent performance. Reports can either be written using the AskPlus command syntax or developed visually using the Visimage3 user interface. AskPlus runs natively on the host server. AskPlus is supported on HP-UX with a Red Hat Linux version coming soon. Because AskPlus is located on the server, it is easy to create and execute UNIX scripts to automate reporting.
UNIX File Types Supported
In addition to Eloquence databases, AskPlus can open and report from most UNIX files. Data can be selected from multiple databases and files in a single query. The powerful link statement allows the user to fully control how datasets and files are joined together.
- AskPlus Self Describing (SD) files
- Suprtool Link (SD) files
- C-ISAM files
- Indexed C-ISAM files
- ASCII delimited files
- ASCII files containing a newline character
- Fixed length binary files.
The powerful link statement allows the user to fully control how datasets, tables and files are joined together.
Update Capabilities
AskPlus is not an application development environment, however, AskPlus can be extremely useful for database administrators to perform database updates and to resolve data integrity issues. AskPlus supports Insert (Add), Update and Delete commands.
We strongly recommend that all update jobs be verified in a test environment before being used in production. We also recommend, whenever possible, that you use AskPlus to generate a TAG file and allow application programs to perform the actual updates.