Texpress options

Texpress options are stored in the .profile-local file stored in the EMu client directory (~emu/client); this ensures that when Texpress is upgraded, the options are not lost.

When specifying options, the format to use in the .profile-local file is:

TEXPRESSOPTS="${TEXPRESSOPTS} option='value' option='value' ..."

export TEXPRESSOPTS

where:

option

is the name of the Texpress option.

value

is the setting to use for option.

To obtain a list of all options currently set:

  1. Log in to the server as user emu.
  2. Enter client client
  3. Enter texenv -v emodule | more

where:

module

is the name of the EMu module / database, e.g. eparties.

The following is an incomplete list of options, but represents the most commonly used options in EMu installations.

Note: Consult the Texpress documentation for a complete list of options.

The dateorder option controls how dates are parsed. In particular it specifies the order of the day, month and year components. Possible settings are:

dateorder='dmy'        # England/Australasia (default)
dateorder='mdy'        # US/Canada/Europe
dateorder='ymd'        # Japan

where

d

is the day component.

m

is the month component.

y

is the year component.

The dateorder option must be specified in the client .profile-local for institutions that do not use the DMY format.

Note: The value of the Date Input Registry entry and dateorder option must be the same; if the Date Input Registry entry is set to MDY, dateorder must be mdy.

The dateformat option specifies how dates should be displayed. The format options available are the same as for Windows. The following sequences are used to represent the components of a date:

d

day (not zero filled)

dd

day (zero filled)

M

month (not zero filled)

MM

month (zero filled)

MMM

month (short string format)

MMMM

month (long string format)

yy

year (as two digit format, no century)

yyyy

year (full year with BC dates as negative years)

Y

year (full year as a positive number only)

e

era (BC/BCE for negative years)

E

era (BC/BCE or AD/CE)

The format string may have punctuation embedded; punctuation is output as determined by its position in the format string. Some common settings are:

dateformat='dd/MM/Y e'        # 23/12/2006, 500 BC
dateformat='dd MMM yyyy'      # 23 Dec 2006, -500
dateformat='dd MMM Y e'       # 23 Dec 2006, 500 BC
dateformat='MM/dd/Y e'        # 12/23/2006, 500 BC
dateformat='d/M/Y e'          # 2/3/2006 (no zero filling), 500 BC
dateformat='M/d/Y e'          # 3/2/2006 (no zero filling), 500 BC
dateformat='Y-MM-dd e'        # 2006-12-23, 500 BC

Where possible it is advisable to use an unambiguous date format. The recommended format is 'dd MMM Y e'.

The timeformat option indicates how time values should be displayed. The format options available are the same as for Windows. The following sequences are used to represent the components of a time value:

h

hour (not zero filled, 12 hour clock)

hh

hour (zero filled, 12 hour clock)

H

hour (not zero filled, 24 hour clock)

HH

hour (not zero filled, 24 hour clock)

M.M

minutes (not zero filled, as float)

MM.M

minutes (zero filled, as float)

m

minutes (not zero filled)

mm

minutes (zero filled)

s

seconds (not zero filled)

s.s

seconds (not zero filled, as float)

ss

seconds (zero filled)

ss.s

seconds (zero filled, as float)

t

period (AM/PM)

Some useful settings are:

timeformat='HH:mm'        # 15:05
timeformat ='hh:mm t'      # 03:05 pm
timeformat='HH:mm:ss'     # 15:05:25
timeformat='h:m:s t'      # 3:5:25 pm

Where possible it is advisable to use 24 hour time rather than 12 hour time.

The latitudeformat option provides the formatting to be used to display latitude values. The following sequences are used to represent components of a latitude value:

d

degrees (not zero filled)

dd

degrees (zero filled)

m

minutes (not zero filled)

mm

minutes (zero filled)

M

minutes (not zero filled, as float, variable precision)

MM

minutes (zero filled, as float, variable precision)

s

seconds (not zero filled)

s.s

seconds (not zero filled, as float, fixed precision)

ss

seconds (zero filled)

ss.s

seconds (zero filled, as float, fixed precision)

D

direction (N/S/E/W)

g

degrees (not zero filled, as float)

gg

degrees (zero filled, as float)

G

degrees (not zero filled, as float with leading +/- for direction)

GG

degrees (zero filled, as float with leading +/- for direction)

H

degrees (not zero filled, as float with leading - for south)

HH

degrees (zero filled, as float with leading - for south)

S

seconds (not zero filled, as float, variable precision)

SS

seconds (zero filled, as float, variable precision)

Some useful formats are:

latitudeformat='dd mm ss D'    # 05 07 15 S
latitudeformat='dd mm SS D'    # 05 07 15.4 S
latitudeformat='dd° M"'" D'    # 05° 7.25' S
latitudeformat='H'             # -5.12083

Texpress stores latitude values as four separate components: degrees, minutes, seconds (as float) and direction. Using floating degree or minute formats will result in representations that may be slightly less precise than the entered value.

The longitudeformat option provides the formatting to be used to display longitude values. The following sequences are used to represent components of a longitude value:

d

degrees (not zero filled)

ddd

degrees (zero filled)

m

minutes (not zero filled)

mm

minutes (zero filled)

M

minutes (not zero filled, as float, variable precision)

MM

minutes (zero filled, as float, variable precision)

s

seconds (not zero filled)

s.s

seconds (not zero filled, as float, fixed precision)

ss

seconds (zero filled)

ss.s

seconds (zero filled, as float, fixed precision)

D

direction (N/S/E/W)

g

degrees (not zero filled, as float)

ggg

degrees (zero filled, as float)

G

degrees (not zero filled, as float with leading +/- for direction)

GGG

degrees (zero filled, as float with leading +/- for direction)

H

degrees (not zero filled, as float with leading - for west)

HHH

degrees (zero filled, as float with leading - for west)

S

seconds (not zero filled, as float, variable precision)

SS

seconds (zero filled, as float, variable precision)

Some useful formats are:

longitudeformat ='ddd mm ss D'    # 005 07 15 W
longitudeformat='ddd mm SS D'    # 005 07 15.4 W
longitudeformat='ddd° M"'" D'    # 005° 7.25' W
longitudeformat='H'              # -5.12083

Texpress stores longitude values internally as four separate components: degrees, minutes, seconds (as float) and direction. Using floating degree or minute formats will result in representations that may be slightly less precise than the entered value.

The tmppath option defines where Texpress will allocate space for temporary use. In most cases this is /tmp, which is the default value. Texpress may require considerable space when performing table re-indexing, so for large institutions it may be worth using an area on another file system. For Solaris based systems it may be worth increasing swap space as Solaris uses swap space for the /tmp filesystem. Large performance improvements may be achieved by allocating the temporary area to a high speed disk.

Some useful formats are:

tmppath=/tmp
tmppath=/disk1/tmp

The loadmemory option indicates the number of kilobytes of memory to allocate when index rebuilding or data loading is performed. In general, the more memory given to the load process, the faster it will complete - to a point. If too much memory is given, the machine will start to swap, causing the load process to slow down the machine and dramatically increase the time taken to complete the process.

Some useful formats are:

loadmemory=65536        # 64 Mb
loadmemory=1048576      # 1 Gb

As a rule of thumb loadmemory should be set to a value representing between 25% and 40% of the overall memory available. If more than one client is installed and maintenance runs are executed in parallel, a smaller value should be used.