Re: SAVCHGOBJ (was APYJRNCHG)

["R. Bruce Hoffman, Jr." <rbruceh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: barsa@barsaconsulting.com <barsa@barsaconsulting.com>
To: midrange-l@midrange.com <midrange-l@midrange.com>
Date: Thursday, August 23, 2001 9:54 AM
Subject: RE: SAVCHGOBJ (was APYJRNCHG)


>
>IMHO, the guys at IBM that figured out multi-membered files were having an
>off day.  Furthermore, the users that relied on such a thing were
>snuckedered down the primrose path.

I agree with the path thingy, but I think members were a great idea. It's
just that early on, no language outside of CL could deal with them. Then
PL/I came along and accepted member names in the language. Later, when C was
added, it too could deal with them.

The concept is elegant. One physical description, with distinct packages of
data. Just does not translate to other systems and seems difficult for
people coming from other systems to understand at first.

But today, with cheaper dasd, it's just an architectural relic, and as we
have been mentioning, a bugaboo for save/restore.

>With the exception of manufacturing packages, the multi-membering of data
>files really never took off, and SQL never recognized it's existence.

Well, partially. We have aliases now that can access various members... but
it's really a retro-fit.


===========================================================
R. Bruce Hoffman, Jr.
 -- IBM Certified Specialist - AS/400 Administrator
 -- IBM Certified Specialist - RPG IV Developer

"America is the land that fought for freedom and then
  began passing laws to get rid of it."

     - Alfred E. Neuman