UDF(s) will work if you need to return a single value only. Of course,
you'd need multiple UDFs to return multiple values from the data area. They
could all be part of a single service program, but multiple CREATE FUNCTIONs
would need to be run.
External Stored Procedure would work as well, as long as you're OK with the
limitation that it has to be invoked in SQL as a standalone call, i.e. CALL
dataAreaStoredProcedure(...), not part of another SQL statement (i.e. SELECT
...).
Stored Procedure could return the values as output arguments, or as a result
set (less attractive solution in this case).
For my money, UDTF is the most elegant solution.
You can treat it as just another table (i.e. join to another, 'real' table)
and leverage it in any SQL statement (i.e. SELECT * FROM table(...) WHERE
...).
HTH, Elvis
Celebrating 11-Years of SQL Performance Excellence on IBM i, i5/OS and
OS/400
www.centerfieldtechnology.com
-----Original Message-----
Subject: Reading a data area in SQL
Morning all
does anyone know of a way to "read" a data area within SQL
My investigation, so far, has unearthed the following web page
http://www.itjungle.com/fhg/fhg051904-story03.html
but this entails writing a table function.
I was wondering if there was any other way.
By the way I am on V5r4
Alan Shore
midrange.com
