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This is a very basic question that is perhaps commonly known. My mainstack has many substacks. Each substack necessarily began as a mainstack but at some point in development it became a substack of the mainstack and was further developed as a substack. However, in Windows Explorer there remains icons for what are now substacks of the mainstack. When my application is open in the IDE and I open in Windows Explorer the icon for what is now a substack, a message appears warning me that a stack by its name is already open and editing it may produce data loss. After I click OK, the substack opens and appears as it did at an earlier time. Is my entire application--the mainstack and its substacks--now contained in the mainstack? Would deleting those files represented by the icons in Windows Explorer have any effect on my application?

Hi Monty,

not sure what you mean, but when you make a former mainstack a substack,
then only a COPY of that former mainstack will become the new substack.
The file on disk of that stack will not get deleted!

Is that what you mean?


Best

Klaus

Hello Klaus,

Thank you for responding. I interpret your response to mean that when I make a mainstack a substack of my "permanent" mainstack, at that moment a copy of that mainstack becomes "incorporated" into the permanent mainstack file. Going forward, there will be no separate file on the disk for that incorporated mainstack. Deleting the file from which the copy was made will have no effect on the mainstack, although the file from which the copy was made could be kept for some reason. If my understanding is correct, I wonder what professional programmers do with those copies? As the incorporated substacks undergo development, the original copies become out-of-date and less useful. I hope I made myself clear.

Kindest regards,

Monty

Hi Monty,

montymay wrote:I interpret your response to mean that when I make a mainstack a substack of my "permanent" mainstack, at that moment a copy of that mainstack becomes "incorporated" into the permanent mainstack file.

exactly!

montymay wrote:Going forward, there will be no separate file on the disk for that incorporated mainstack. Deleting the file from which the copy was made will have no effect on the mainstack,

Exactly again.

montymay wrote:If my understanding is correct, I wonder what professional programmers do with those copies?
As the incorporated substacks undergo development, the original copies become out-of-date and less useful.

Yes, but that is a matter of personal preference!
I usually print out these stacks and paste them into my diary.

That was of course a joke!


Best

Klaus

I usually just delete the original as soon as I'm sure the substack works. It's easy enough to clone and save a copy of the substack later if you want an independent backup.