Re: How do I recognize a system catalog table?

|| : Quote from Jake's original message | : Quote from Madison's response Madison (AKA SaTriGuy) wrote: ||The only possibility seems to be in the ti_flags column of systabinfo. ||without really rigorous checking, it seems that the ti_flags column ||for a system catalog has the 0x2 bit turned on; non-catalogs seem to ||have the 0x1 bit and temp tables in the bogus SORTTEMP database seem ||to have these bits turned off. || ||Q1: ||Can anyone confirm - with true knowledge - that I have come to a ||correct conclusion regarding these flags? | | Wrong - those are the page/row locking Thanks but that still leaves me wondering how to recognize a catalog, since these last 2 bits are not the key I seek. I notice (with one arched eyebrow ;-) you did not answer Q2, repeated below.. ||Q2: ||Carrying this to an unsurprising follow-up: Does anyone have genuine ||information (read: Documentation) on what in *&^%! these flags all ||stand for? It's not in the FM. (That's the fine manual - get your ||mind out of the gutter! ;-) As for Q3: ||Q3: ||Assuming my empirical conclusion to be correct regarding that low two ||bits of ti_flags, what kind of expression can I use to isolate this ||digit? | | Try select bitval(ti_flags, 1) from systabinfo Thanks! Exactly what I needed. But I don't see it documented in the Guide to SQL Syntax. When I experimented with it I deliberately added a third parameter, I incurred an error: 694: Too many arguments passed to procedure (informix.bitval).Interesting! So bitval() is *not* an SQL function; it is a stored procedure in the sysmaster database. I think these procedures are in need of documentation! Madison added: |The catalog tables for sysmaster still have the tabid < 99 business. |The pseudo tables have a partition number < 1048576 (0x0100000). |The views have a tabtype of "V" This would be helpful if I were accessing the catalogs directly. I am not; I am getting all table information from the sysmaster database. I just realized I am making the assumption that sysmaster treats system catalogs differently from regular tables. This is a reasonable assumption but not necessarily correct. So who will set me straight on this issue? *Is* there a special way to recognize a catalog from ti_flags in systabinfo? Thanks. -- -- Jake (Master of the logical but incorrect assumption) +------------------------------------------------------------+ | The expedient performance of a task with excessive concern | | regarding its duration-to-completion engenders a virtual | | certainty of diminished benefit therefrom. | | -- Benjamin Franklin (but he said it in 3 words) | +------------------------------------------------------------+