Copying Aleph /tab files between servers and timestamps

• Article Type: General
• Product: Aleph
• Product Version: 18.01

Description:
We have several Aleph servers and periodically copy Aleph /tab and other files from server to server and wonder if the date/time on the copied files should always be newer than the date/time of the files being replaced in order for the alephcom.ini "AlwaysImportFiles=Y" setting to automatically download new copies of files.

Our scenario is such that certain files on our test server may actually have more recent timestamps than the files that replace them. We want to make certain that the files being copied are downloaded into GUIclients, but the mechanism that we use to copy files preserves the original timestamp.

Here's an example:

On the TEST18 server we have xxx01/tab/pc_tab_col.eng with a timestamp of 2007-10-02, because someone was testing a change to the table.

On the PROD18 server we have xxx01/tab/pc_tab_col.eng with a timestamp of 2006-12-01.

The file copy from PROD18 to TEST18 results in a xxx01/tab/pc_tab_col.eng file with a timestamp of 2006-12-01, because our copy mechanism preserves the source file's timestamp.

Question: will the TEST18 GUIclient download the pc_tab_col.eng table with the timestamp of 2006-12-01? Or, are only the *.pck files downloaded into the client, so that if we clear utf_files and then run util M/7 and util I/6 after the table copy and prior to restarting the pc_server we'll have "installed" all of the newly copied tables?

Resolution:
Only the *.pck files are downloaded to the client.

In the case of (certain) $data_tab and $alephe_tab files, you need to do util x/7 to make sure that the new (though older-dated) versions of the files will be used.

In the case of ./pc_tab/cataloging files, you need to do util m/7.

In the case of ./form_eng files, you need to do util i/6.

Doing the above three will assure that current versions are being used.

In the scenario you describe, clearing the utf_files (util x/7) will force the current pc_tab_col.eng to be used.