RE: DDS ALIAS keyword

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Buck,

A couple of additions to this conversation, and apologies from the formatting
(I'm replying from the digest mode):

1. The DDS ALIAS is available via ODBC as well as the other languages you
mentioned.  In fact, outside of the AS/400 world, this is the default field
name and the 6-character field name is the "short" or "system handle" field
name.

2. I don't think you want to create views--the beauty of the ALIAS is that it
goes on the PF and can be used from any LF/VIEW.

3. I believe that Jasmine Developer 2e (previously COOL:2e and long-ago
SYNON/2e) will automatically generate ALIAS statements for your DDS if you
are using the COBOL generator.

4. I have a utility that you can install as a precompiler step (via a
subsystem router entry) that will convert the TEXT keyword source entries to
ALIAS keywords, and any illegal ALIAS characters to underscores whenever you
"gen" a file.   If you leave your field text as the 2e field name, this works
well.  Your COLHDG keywords become the TEXT on the fields by default, as you
probably know.

5. You can find more on this sort of thing on the EDGE User Group Forum for
2e.   The link is something like http://neo3.sba.com/forums/index.cfm?CFAppØ2
&

E-mail me privately if you like.

--Chapin Kaynor
  Kaynor@aol.com
  Kaynor@VSAC.org


> Message: 10
> From: Buck Calabro <Buck.Calabro@commsoft.net>
> To: midrange-l@midrange.com
> Subject: RE: DDS ALIAS keyword
> Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 09:21:39 -0400
> Reply-To: midrange-l@midrange.com
>
> >> Is there any way except DDS to put an alias on a field?
>
> ...
>
> After seeing both answers, I'm sure I did a poor job of explaining what I'm
> after.  In DDS, there's a keyword called ALIAS.   It adds another name (IBM
> call it the alternative name.)  This alternative name is not accessible from
> RPG, but it is accessible from COBOL, PL/I and SQL.
>
> The DDS specs are created by a CASE tool called Cool2:E (formerly Synon.)
> The CASE tool is great, but we want to write some stored procedures and the
> SQL guys are balking at the Ugly generated field names; names that look like
> this: B1LWNB, B1EJCF, B1EKCF, B1N4CD...  I can easily write a program to
> update the generated DDS, add ALIAS to each field and CHGPF each file, but I
> was hoping for a way to do that without having to tinker with the DDS.
>
> Buck
>
> --__--__--

Message: 15
From: Buck Calabro <Buck.Calabro@commsoft.net>
To: midrange-l@midrange.com
Subject: RE: DDS ALIAS keyword
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 09:49:53 -0400
Reply-To: midrange-l@midrange.com

>The only way (in SQL) that I know of to give a
>column two names is on the CREATE TABLE
>statement. Have you considered creating views
>for them? It would be trivial to create a tool that
>generates the necessary SQL statement
>for each table.

Thanks John - that's what we'll probably end up doing.

Buck

Message: 13
From: bill.reger@convergys.com
Subject: RE: DDS ALIAS keyword
To: midrange-l@midrange.com
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 11:53:30 -0400
Reply-To: midrange-l@midrange.com

Buck,

I know this doesn't specifically address your question, but this is one of
the reasons why I have always preferred to rename Cool:2E (aka Synon) field
names right after creating them.  Some see this as an unproductive
excercise, but how many times have you had to look at the source or debug a
Cool:2E generated program and wished that the "Customer Balance" field
named CSABVA had been named CSBAL$ instead?

It is wonderful that while working with Cool:2E that the field is always
referred to as "Customer Balance" rather than some cryptic 6-byte name.
But outside of Cool:2E these cryptic names are worked with every day.

Bill