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Text File | 1986-07-07 | 10.8 KB | 334 lines

SHOPPING PROGRAM July 7, 1986 CONTENTS -------- DISCLAIMER ........................................... 1 OVERVIEW ............................................. 2 USING THE PROGRAM .................................... 3 MISCELLANY ........................................... 4 Page 1 DISCLAIMER ---------- We got the idea for this program because my Daughter the Shopper found she was making too many trips to the supermarket, doing too much impulse buying, and in general wasting time and money. Now she has a handle on what she spends, we rarely run out of things, and handle the nuisance of grocery shopping more efficiently. It does look a little strange to people, seeing her running around the supermarket with a computer printout, but what the heck! The program is offered to the public as is, and no responsibility is assumed for any damage arising from its' use. It is hoped that you find it helpful in the drudgery of grocery shopping. The program runs on a PC Jr, PC/XT, and PC/AT. It requires 128k of memory and one diskette drive. It was written in BASIC, using BDS (Basic Development System) under DOS 2.1. An IBM Graphics Printer or equivalent is also required for printing the Shopping List. The source code was originally 31k in length, but BDS was used to shorten variable names, combine lines, and delete comment lines. As a result, for debugging purposes, variable name meanings will not be obvious. Although she doesn't intend any further releases or general maintenance, if bugs are found, please leave a message on the board where you downloaded the program, and if possible,my Daughter the Programmer will give you the patch. One last point - if the program does nothing else, at least maybe it'll get the lady of the house involved in the computer and perhaps she'll finally understand why you spend so many hours on it! Harvey Scali - the Father: Eater of the groceries. Susan Scali - the Daughter: Chief Coupon Clipper, Programmer, and Shopper par Excellence! Page 2 OVERVIEW -------- The program lets you create up to 19 shopping categories, i.e., DAIRY, PRODUCE, MEATS, CANNED GOODS, etc., as you choose. Within each category you can create up to 20 item types - for example, in the DAIRY category you might have MILK, EGGS, BUTTER, etc. There is a 20th category that is pre-set as "OTHER STORES". This also allows up to 20 items that you might purchase elsewhere - drugstore, gas, etc. On the printed shopping list, this category shows on a separate page. You can create, change and delete categories and items. You also assign to each item a description, an allocation (how many of the item should be on hand), the in-stock position, and a price. There is also a "Statistics" option that shows, within a given time period, how many times you shopped for an item, and the total number of that item bought. This is useful in that, if you find you shopped for an item 5 times in one month and purchased a total of 5 of that item, then your allocation is obviously too low and you are wasting time at the store - unless, of course it's a perishable item. Using this option requires that you set the date before running this program. As you use items, you would keep a record and periodically update your shopping list in the program. When you are ready to actually do the shopping, you would print the list. It would show the category, the items within the category by name, description, how many to buy, the price, extension, and expected total. When the shopping list is printed, a temporary file is created from what was on the list. After having shopped you would update this file with what you actually purchased. The item file would be updated accordingly. For more efficiency, you can arrange the categories in an order that approximates the layout of aisles in the store or stores you shop at. That way the printed list will be such that you can literally proceed through the store from one end to the other, and not have to jump around on the list or in the store. You can specify as many store layouts as you want. They will be kept in their own files. Initially it will require some work to determine your categories and items, to figure what each allocation should be, and to know the prices. Use of the program will give you more familiarity with these details, as you shop and note what you spend and how often you buy an item. You can then adjust accordingly. You should back up your files, for safety' sake, and in the event that you mess them up with changes, etc., beyond repair. Page 3 USING THE PROGRAM When you start the program, you'll be asked for a work file drive - the one on which you want your category, item, and store layout files to reside. We use a ram disk for these for speed's sake. However, you can go through the program and hardcode a drive if you like, by taking out certain lines. See Page 4 for the line numbers. Empty category and item files will be created the first time through the program. The category file is a 21 record sequential file. Each of the first 20 records contains the category name and record number of the first item in that category. The 21st record is the date - see "Statistics", above. The item file is a random file, 17200 bytes in length. Although the first item in a category is found randomly, the remaining 19 item records are gotten sequentially. This method shortens the access time to an item considerably. You would then use option 5 on the main menu (FILE MAINTENANCE) and proceed to fill in your categories and then your items. Category and item names, and item descriptions are restricted to 15 characters each, and a beep will sound if you exceed this. At any point, from the FILE MAINTENANCE menu, you can display categories and items, delete/change/add categories and items. The options in the menu are self explanatory. If you delete a category, the corresponding item records are also deleted, the categories are "moved up" to fill the empty designation, and the item record pointers updated accordingly. From the MAIN menu, Option 1 will let you update - either the shopping list or the stock - i.e., as you use items you would update the list of what you need to buy. After you buy them, you would update the stock. The option will lead you accordingly. Option 2 allows you to display or print the shopping list. If you opt to print it, at that point the temporary file will be created, which is the input to updating the stock (Option 1). Displaying the list will not cause any updates, but merely show you what you need to buy so far. Option 3 will allow you to display or print the entire item file. Option 4 is the STATISTICS option. You will be shown the date of the last stock update. If you want to keep track monthly of the statistics, you will be given the option of erasing that date. Your statistics file will then begin again when you next update the stock. Overall, the menus guide you and there is not much need for further explanation as to their use. There are instances though, where a single key input will be required, without hitting the ENTER key, and others where the ENTER key must be pressed. The latter are where input would possibly be more than one character. All menu options require pressing only the number of the option, whereas, looking at a specific category or item requires pressing ENTER after the number. Any prompts requiring a "yes, no, or quit" answer require only pressing the y, n or q keys. Most null inputs will take you back to the previous menu. Page 4 MISCELLANY ---------- There is more to the program than described above, but using it will make you familiar with it, rather than supplying a lengthy description here. The following, however is information on the files created, and hard-coding a Work Drive: Files: ----- The files created by the program the first time you invoke it are: CAT. - The Category File - sequential ITEMS. - The Item File - random Printing the shopping list creates the file 'TEMP.' - a sequential list of the items and quantities to be purchased. Used as input to the stock updating function, and then deleted by the program. Store sequence file - created just prior to printing the Shopping List, if you opt to do so. The program appends the prefix .STR to the file when you supply the store name. It can be saved and called for before printing the Shopping List. Sequence files can be created for as many stores as you like. They will be displayed if you ask for an existing Sequence file, and you would choose the particular one at that time. The shopping list would then print in that store's aisle sequence. Hard-Coding the Work Drive: -------------------------- All the files named above must reside on the work drive. To hard-code the work drive, rather than having the initial prompt for a drive letter come up each time you run the program, remove lines 20, 30, and 40 (the Prompt statements). Next, change the variable DRV$ to the drive and a colon - i.e., 'c:'. For example, the statement OPEN DRV$+"items" as #1 would be changed to read OPEN "c:items" as #1 The line numbers to change are: 50, 60, 1130, 1140, 1490, 1570, 1670, 2050 (3), 2140, 2470, 2590, 2610, 2630, 2670, 2710, 2930 (2), 3110 (2) where the number in parentheses indicates the number of times the variable DRV$ appears in that line. HAPPY SHOPPING!!