STEP Tools News for Monday June 21

[Martin Hardwick]

Since 1991 STEP Tools has been developing software tools and databases
for product data. This weekly newsletter is a brief update of what is
going on in STEP and at STEP Tools, Inc.  If you want to know more,
try the STEP Tools web site (http://www.steptools.com).


------------------------------
STEP Database Control Language

A second document has been added to the series on EXPRESS-X. The new
document shows how a Database Control Language can be used to manage a
database. The new language includes the following commands:

 - OPEN is used to open schema instances.
 - BIND is used to bind EXPRESS-X views to schema instances.
 - COPY is used to copy EXPRESS-X extents between schema instances.
 - DELETE is used to deep delete everything referenced by an extent.
 - MAP is used to map data from one extent to another extent.
 - UPDATE is used to update the instances in an extent.
 - SAVE is used to save the current value of a schema instance to a file.

Examples show how a database can be updated from Java business objects.
The STEP Database Control Language is a key feature of ST-Repository. 

   http://www.steptools.com
 

-------------------------------
Unified Part 21 Amendment Text

A Part 21 amendment is being balloted by SC4. The amendment comes
after one technical corrigendum to Part 21. Someone trying to read the
amendment first needs to read the original source, then apply the
technical corrections and finally the amendment. This is difficult
even for the experts!

Therefore, STEP Tools in its role as editor has prepared a unified
version of the text and put it onto its web site. The new version is
much easier to read and will be used to develop the text of the final
standard.

    http://www.steptools.com/projects/part21/


-------------------------
New Product: ST-J Adaptor

The ST-J Adaptor is an extension of our best selling ST-Developer STEP
programming tool for Java programming. It supports Conformance Classes
1 and 2 of the SDAI Java and has a direct Java interface to the
ST-Developer C and C++ libraries. A text substitution library makes it
easy to generate XML and HTML from STEP data using templates.

The "J" in ST-J Adaptor is for Java. Sun Microsystems will not let
anyone use Java in a product name because of the problems it has been
having with a large well known computer company.


-------------------------------------------------
Object Oriented Information Modeling with EXPRESS

Tuesday/Wednesday July 13-14, 1999 

All classes are held at STEP Tools, Inc. in Troy, New York.

This course introduces the student to information modeling, the
EXPRESS language and its companion EXPRESS-G and EXPRESS-X
languages. Demonstrations and class exercises are included in the
course.


-------------------
Translation Service

Period Covered: Sun Jun 13 03:25:03 1999 -- Sun Jun 20 03:25:03 1999
Total usage: 69
Successful usage: 61 (88%)
Errors: 8 (11%)


Translator	total	errors	success rate

acis-ap203	11	0	100%
ap203-acis	33	1	96%
ap203-stl	1	0	100%
ap203-vrml	6	0	100%
ap203check	1	1	0%
expfront2	1	0	100%
gifviz		1	0	100%
step-para	9	2	77%
step2xml	3	1	66%
steptoimage	2	2	0%
xml2step	1	1	0%

=======================================
All-Time stats

------------------------------------
Summary:
Period Covered: Wed Dec 31 19:00:00 1969 -- Sun Jun 20 03:25:18 1999
Total usage: 4513
Successful usage: 3956 (87%)
Errors: 557 (12%)


Translator	total	errors	success rate

acis-ap203	953	46	95%
ap203-acis	1646	169	89%
ap203-stl	114	41	64%
ap203-vrml	394	103	73%
ap203-xml	87	18	79%
ap203check	225	19	91%
expfront	124	17	86%
expfront2	97	0	100%
express2html	266	2	99%
expxfront	11	1	90%
gifviz		173	47	72%
iges-ap202	10	0	100%
para-step	18	11	38%
sp203-xml	13	2	84%
step-para	26	5	80%
step2xml	97	14	85%
steptoimage	235	53	77%
xml2step	24	9	62%


-------------
Summer Offers

This is our slow time of year so we are making the
following offers to those who do not wait until the
Fall (September 21) to buy.

1. Customers who purchase a copy of ST-Developer for
   Windows NT or Windows 95 may purchase a copy of
   ST-Visualizer for the same platform for $3,200 -
   a discount of more than 50%!

2. Customers who purchase ST-Developer for any UNIX
   platform will receive an 8 month extended evaluation
   version of ST-Developer for Windows NT or Windows 95
   so that they can give demonstrations on their portable
   computers.


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