While debugging, after having stepped over a READ operation, I often find myself in an urge to see what has actually been read from the file.
One could go seek for a matching file descriptor entry in code, but many times this is cumbersome.
So, I'd like to propose to not only display a file status for a file handle, but also all corresponding file descriptors assigned to that file handle. I suggest the file descriptor information be displayed as child item(s) of the file status:
Current Situation
Desired Situation
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
FYI: Screenshot of sample project used to create the above mock:
For relative files having a key data item assigned using the RELATIVE KEY IS data-name-5 clause (see SELECT statement), I propose to have that key data item listed beneath the file handle, too:
The corresponding SELECT clause is:
SELECT fileHandleR ASSIGN ".\\Rel-Test.txt" LOCK MODE IS MANUAL ORGANIZATION IS RELATIVE ACCESS MODE IS SEQUENTIAL RELATIVE KEY IS lineIdx.
Currently, all the different parts of a file access situation are spread somewhere across the code base.
Having index key (if applicable) and FD descriptors in one place, one would have everything important to debug a file access situation easily available at the ready.
Such improvement would be of great value, I believe.
------------------------
Attached please find the sample project I used to create the above mock image.
