Bit and bad!

[Rick Whitelaw]

I'm posting this because I consider it an important enough warning. Sometime in 2011, a sub script that had worked for a long time stopped working. Well, it didn't fail, but began to stop recording important data. Somehow two script steps began working (and appeared in the editor) in reverse. What should have been SetVariable(all properly done) then GoToLayout (where the variable is used to SetField) got reversed so the SetField was failing without an error message. I found the problem just today. I have no idea how the steps got reversed. I must have done it of course because the data was empty from mid 2011 but complete before that. So why the warning? This subscript was involved in recording income data paid to non-resident employees and was summed at the end of the year on tax forms. In Canada, these are called T4A NR forms. In all, as a result of this one-line reversal, I under declared around $50,000.00 of fees paid out in 2011. I can only imagined how much excess tax I paid. The lesson? Be very careful I suppose, but also use instinct to sniff out when a number is "way off". Penny mistakes don't happen often in databases. When a figure is so far out of whack something's wrong. My likely true mistake? Arrogance. I mailed out the forms to employee and government alike without careful scrutiny.

[katelara]

v13 now offers the possibility to use "System Settings" to show decimal and thousands separator. this means you don't have to add calculations to display the correct value.

[Rick Whitelaw]

Kate, I fail to make the connection between the original post and your reply.

Thanks for the reply all the same, though! Happy New Year.

[carlosnorvik]

Hi:

 

it is fairly easy to inadvertently change the order of script steps with an unnoticed mouse movement (just like when folders "disappear" inside another folder).

However, the Script Editor always asks if you want to save the changes.

My only guess is that during a script modification (where the save was confirmed), the order was  inadvertently changed.

 

Sorry to hear about the tax paid, I guess Canada is no different from most other governments; they like to receive extra but balk even at minute underpayments.

Nice country, I went to McGill in the 70's.

[Rick Whitelaw]

The script hadn't undergone modifications in some time. Although I know it's an easy mistake to make, I can't believe I ever did it. I will check backups from 2011.

[Josh Ormond]

I wish FM would log changes to the structure and scripts.

[bruceR]

Note that is also easy to change script step order from the keyboard with control-up or control-down.

You can also use shift-select and the arrow keys to select multiple lines; then control-up or control-down to move the selected lines.

[carlosnorvik]

Hi Josh:

 

Has somebody come up with a plugin to track those changes?

 

Carlos