Re: Tables and PFs

Dennis

Seems to me that if there IS a difference in some behavior, that it is not true that it "...makes no difference to ... the system ..." as you said below. An example IS when data is validated - and IBM do make some noise about how important this is - especially as it prevents the input of things like decimal-data errors into the files/tables/mesas. Things like multiple-member capability vs. only-one-member can be significant in usage.

Now it is true that in RPG it doesn't change what you do to use one or the other. They are both physical files. They DO have different attributes - just do DSPFD on one and the other and you will see those differences. These differences don't appear at the OBJD level but at the file description level. So, as I've had to do in some of my job lately, you may have to dig deeper.

And only you get to decide whether the operational distinctions matter to you, or are worth the time to change everything over.

Vern

Dennis Lovelady wrote:

There is a nice article about the differences between DDS described
physical
and logical files and SQL Defined Tables, Views and Indexes:

Understood. But the distinction (clearly stated in the document to which
you refer, as I recall) is how the entity is created, not in what it's
called. The OP asked about what to CALL these things, and did not specify
how they were created.

I may call an entity created by SQL a file or a table; makes no difference
to me nor to the system. I can create this entity via CREATE TABLE, and
then WRKOBJ .. OBJTYPE(*FILE) and, lo and behold, the entity will appear in
the list. Is the system broken?

By the same token, I can create a PF using DDS... and I can create a view
over that using SQL. SQL couldn't care less because the object *IS* a
table.

To say that a table has this attribute while a PF has that attribute...
that's all nonsense. But let's carry this forward. You create a PF using
DDS. Now you add a column using SQL. Is it a table, a file or a hybrid of
some sort?

What do you call it? Just don't call it late for dinner.

Dennis Lovelady
http://www.linkedin.com/in/dennislovelady
--
"Nature gave man two ends - one to sit on and one to think with. Ever since
then man's success or failure has been dependent on the one he used most."
-- George R. Kirkpatrick