SQL vs. DDS The good, the bad and the downright ugly. Author Additions To This Tip By submitting your personal information, you agree that Tech. Target and its partners may contact you regarding relevant content, products and special offers. You also agree that your personal information may be transferred and processed in the United States, and that you have read and agree to the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy. In case you havent heard, DDS is no longer the development language of choice when it comes to defining and maintaining your database. It has been usurped by SQLs Data Definition Language DDL. Why the change DDL is the standard definition language used for most if not all other databases. It is reasonable for IBM to adopt the same standard for OS4. OS. But what does DDL offer over DDS and vice versa Lets take a look. The Good. Here, in no particular order of importance, are some of the good points of DDL It is not a question of replacing all you current DDS with DDL. A file is a file regardless of whether it was defined using DDS or DDL. You can create logical files over DDL defined tables just as easily as you can define views and indexes over DDS defined physical files. You do not have to become an expert is SQL to start using DDL. Programming manuals and tutorials for AS400, AS400, OS400, I series, RS6000, COBOL 400, SQL 400, CL. Hi,In our Production system, we had applied Kernel upto patch level 263 and whileapplying SPAM 30 for release 640 it failed. We tried applying Basis patch 15 stillit. ABAP Advanced Business Application Programming, originally Allgemeiner BerichtsAufbereitungsProzessor, German for general report creation processor is a high. Series Navigator has an easy to use interface to get you started. The figure below shows the interface for defining a table physical file. It is mouse driven, and you select the required options as opposed to learning the SQL syntax and keywords. The i. Series Navigator interface joins many disparate functions in one place. The figure above shows tabs for Indexes, Referential Integrity, Check Constraints and Triggers each of which would be different combinations of source and commands using a 5. When you are ready to come to grips with SQL syntax, i. Series Navigator provides the option to Generate SQL for any file, regardless of whether the file was originally defined using DDS or DDL. One of the most powerful features of DDL is that you can define a view of a view. That means you can define a complex join logical view and then define simpler views of that complex view as opposed to having to repeat the complex join logic in multiple views. You can even define a join between two views. In a view you can construct derived columns that are way beyond the equivalent provided by DDS. Derived columns can be a simple construct such as the result of a formula applied to other columns e. QUANTITY PRICE or they can have a more complex construct using some of SQLs scalar functions. Scalar functions are the equivalent of Built in Functions in RPG. T Shirt Iron On Programs To'>T Shirt Iron On Programs To. Just as you can define your own functions in RPG subprocedures so too can you define your own functions in SQL these functions can even call subprocedures you have written in RPG. Check constraints provide the ability to have the database manager validate the values that are placed in columns fields. This can be a simple check of allowed values e. PRICE 0 or a more complicated comparison using multiple columns and formulae e. PRICE BUYPRICE MARKUP. The nearest you have to this in DDS are the COMP, RANGE and VALUES keywords. Although defined on the database, these keywords are applicable only on display files. Check constraints can also be defined using the ADDPFCST command in a 5. The Bad. Here are the bad points of DDL. IBM i V5R4 documentation. Welcome to the IBM i V5R4 documentation, where you can find technical information about IBM i. Step 3. Run the CL and check your results. Of course the CL can be set up on the job scheduler wrkjobscde if your application needs to be run automatically at. Author Lionel Halvorsen This is a portion of a shell program that I use for writing simple reports. There is only one file here and I only use two fields. Ok, so, youve passed ANZOBJCVN, upgraded to V6R1, and now run STROBJCVN so your users do not pay the first touch penalty. I think we discussed this on a thread but. Some are problems because they are the opposite of the way you do things with DDS, and others are problems because they do not offer some of the functionality of DDS. Again, the list is in no particular order of importance. DDL introduces a whole new terminology at least for us for the database. There are now collections, tables, indexes and views as opposed to libraries, physical files and logical files. The DDL defaults are not the same as DDS. The default column name is the long name this has to be defined with the ALIAS keyword in DDS of course, that is good news for COBOL programmers. By default, all columns are null capable the opposite of DDS. The friendly interface of i. Series Navigator is of little benefit when it comes to maintaining the database. You have to resort to SQL code unless you are simply adding columns to a table. DDL does not have the equivalent of the EDTCDE and EDTWRD keywords. Changes required for PASE for i programs that call the JNICreateJavaVM API. Ensure that necessary language features are installed. Fighter Jet Military Pdf Manuals. Sql Cl Program Iseries' title='Sql Cl Program Iseries' />When you define a table physical file in DDL the Format name is the same as the file name. This is not an issue for COBOL programmers, but it is for RPG programmers. You either rename the format in every RPG program that opens the table or create the table with the format name and rename the table. Neither solution is perfect. As an aside, my preference would be to have RPG allow the same name for the format and the file. The Downright Ugly. Whereas each of the bad points listed above are manageable, there is one major problem with DDL. SQL treats views and indexes as two separate entities. An index is a keyed logical, and a view is a non keyed logical and never the twain shall meet. Or, to put it another way, you cannot define a key for a view. That means all of those wonderful features that are available when defining views are of little or no benefit in high level language programs. A view is useful only if you are not interested in a key sequence or in accessing records by key and how often does that happen or if you are using embedded SQL. Which to use Should you start using DDL or should you stick with DDS The answer is to use both. Over the past couple of years I am inclined to use DDL to define any database, but I still resort to DDS when I need to. DDL offers functionality that removes code from programs and ensures the enforcement of rules through the database as opposed to the application. It is almost certain at least I hope it is almost certain that IBM will provide some means of defining a combined viewindex with DDL, especially since it can be easily defined with DDS. I am willing to make do with the bad as long as this one gets fixed. Of course, I am also more then willing to have any of the bad features turn good. About the author Paul Tuohy is CEO of Com. Con, an i. Series consulting company. He is the author of Re Engineering RPG Legacy Applications and is one of the quoted industry experts in the IBM Redbook Who Knew You Could Do That With RPG IVMy thanks to Dave Anderson for pointing out a couple of performance related omissions from this programming tip one good and one bad. Indexes have a page size of 6. K as opposed to an index page size of 4. K or 8. K for logical files. This can lead to an obvious increase in processing speed. Logical files will share an access path if the keys are a subset of an existing access path e. A, B and C and you are defining a logical file with a key of the fields A and B the access path will be shared. On the other hand, indexes will only share an access path if all the key fields match. SQL 4. 00 Output to file. Hi Experts,The longer I work with AS4. I see that I know almost nothing about it When I run a Select statment in SQL, I get the output on screen. Is there a possibility to write the output to a file Can I do that directly from SQL or do I need a CL with some override. Car Accident Simulation Program Coordinator.