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The opensecret statement opens a database invisibly, without opening its windows.

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Parameters

This statement has one parameter:

database – identifies the database you want to open. If the database is not in the same folder as the current database, you must specify the entire path name in addition to the file name.

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Description

The opensecret statement opens a database without opening any windows or launching the .Initialize procedure. It’s useful if a procedure needs to access a database, but the user doesn’t need to see what’s inside.

This example opens a database called Shipping Rates, but does not open any of the windows for that database. It then looks up a rate from the table.

opensecret "Shipping Rates"
Shipping= lookup("Shipping Rates",Zone,Zip[1,3],Rate,0,0)

A database which has been opened secretly with the opensecret statement is not immediately active. It can be made so with the setactivedatabase statement, as in:

opensecret "Income"
setactivedatabase "Income"

Another way is to use the window statement like this:

opensecret "Income"
window "Income:secret"

It then remains the active database until the procedure ends, until another setactivedatabase statement activates another database or until the visible window changes, such as when a message or alert is triggered. The use of the save statement has the same effect but saves the database with no windows open. A consequence of this is that, if you subsequently attempt to open the database in the same procedure, it won’t open. The following code will overcome that problem.

opensecret "Income"
setactivedatabase "Income"
    
... do stuff in "Income"

save
setactivedatabase "Income"
opensheet
openfile "Income"

You could use an openform statement instead of the opensheet statement.

To make a database visible which has been opened secretly, displaying the windows open when it was last saved, use the opensavedwindows statament:

opensecret "Income"

... do stuff in "Income" with no windows open

opensavedwindows

... saved windows of "Income" are now visible

No .Initialize Procedure

Unlike the opendatabase and openfile statements, Panorama does not automatically run the .Initialize procedure when you use the opensecret statement (see Custom Database Initialization). If you want to run this procedure, you must explicitly call it in your program, like this:

opensecret "Income"
setactivedatabase "Income"
call .Initialize

As shown in this code, you must set the active database before calling the .Initialize procedure, since the newly opened database doesn’t have any visible windows. Make sure that your .Initialize code doesn’t rely on a window being open.

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See Also

• Auxiliary Databases -- automatically opening multiple databases associated with each other.
• closefile -- closes the current database.
• closeserverfile -- closes the current database (used on the server).
• Custom Database Initialization -- using an .Initialize procedure to automatically run custom code when a database opens.
• Database Integrity Checks -- checking database integrity when opening and saving.
• Database is Damaged Alert -- how to fix the "database is damaged" alert when opening a database.
• opendatabase -- opens a database file.
• openfile -- opens a database file. It can also import data from a text file, another database, or a variable into the current database.
• opensavedwindows -- opens windows that were open the last time file was saved.
• openserverfile -- opens a database (used on the server).
• opentextfile -- imports data from a text file or a variable into the current database.
• panoramastartupdatabases -- opens any databases specified for startup.

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History

Version	Status	Notes
10.0	No Change	Carried over from Panorama 6.0.