RE: Logical File or OPNQRYF or any other way ? - Legacy iSeriesFlatFiles

["Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is certainly true.  Well, almost true: the primary and foreign keys
are certainly defined, they're just not identified to the RDBMS.  In the
bad old days before triggers and constraints, we didn't worry about
these things because it was all taken care of in the program anyway.

You only need those things identified if you are trying to implement
some of the more advanced RDBMS features such as cascading deletes and
updates and constraints to avoid orphans.  Personally, I'm about 50/50
on those; they're nice, but almost as easy to write myself provided I
follow the simple rule of only one program to update the database.
Plus, with your own program, you can implement performance tweaks like
submitting a cascaded delete to batch while letting the primary program
continue on.

Joe

> From: Wilt, Charles
> 
> For a relational DB to be managed by a relational DBMS, there have to
be
> relationships between the data defined.  All too often, DBs on the
iSeries
> don't have primary and foreign keys defined.