Re: Advise on a Database Change

[James Rich <james@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 22 Aug 2001, Giri Gopal wrote:

> A need has arrived to change the field size of a field. This field is 10th
> field in a 125 fields file. The field size is 9 numeric. Need to change this
> to 22 bye character field.
>
> The questions is Do I change the type and size at the same location (10th
> field) and recompile the file, or remove the field and add the column at the
> end of the file?

If all your programs use this externally defined and you don't have any
S36 style SORTs I think changing in place is nice.  But if you are like me
and have a million program defined programs and thousands of SORTs in OCL
and hundreds of S36 style DFUs and a boss and customers who don't like to
pay for all that to be changed I'd recommend putting the new field at the
end of the file.

James Rich
james@eaerich.com