Re: Flat File to SQL-DDL

On 2/14/11 8:19 AM, Jerry C. Adams wrote:

First, I'm on V5R1.

Second, I'm dealing with a legacy application ported years ago to
the AS/400 (!) from either a System/34 or /36.

Third, there are no external table definitions except the ones that I
have created. I prefer using SQL-DDL, but I have never been about to
find an equivalent for DDS's EDTCDE and EDTWRD.

DDL's edit [equivalent to EDTCDE(J)] is find for 90-95% of the
cases. However, since I'm dealing with legacy files, the dates are
8.0 numeric (ccyymmdd), and they get displayed as, for example,
20,110,214 in queries. Is there any way to display dates using an
edit word, such as EDTWRD(' - - ')? Or even something like EDTCDE(Y)?
I use date data types when creating new tables, but converting these
legacy tables is, for the time being, out of the question.

I RTFM's and could not find anything so I'm surmising that the answer
is "You're SOL." But asking is worth a shot.

There is little reason to move to SQL DDL versus to PF-DDS to get the external description, so just use DDS [or if a fit, the IDDU] and keep [using] the available numeric editing.

As surmised, with a conversion to use the SQL DDL, there be loss of numeric editing for use by DSPF, PRTF, and [at least as presented by some native] query tools. With such a conversion great care is required, to be taken in advance, to ensure no dependencies exist for placing invalid data into numeric fields; i.e. correction of data and code not already completed will need to be corrected as incidents are encountered after replacing either flat files [optionally described by the IDDU] or DDS described physical files with TABLE files created by SQL DDL. Note: non-native and\or non-local [at the server] query report writers implemented over SQL DML [SELECT] are not likely to provide any support for presenting the numeric using the defined numeric editing anyway.

http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l/200812/msg01409.html
http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l/200708/msg01210.html
http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l/201102/msg00352.html
http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l/200808/msg00315.html

Regards, Chuck