UPDATE - Column order guaranteed?

Hi All... Simple Q for you all. In the following UPDATE statment fragment: UPDATE table set col1=col2, col2=col3, col3=0 Is this update GUARANTEED to be in the order I presented? Is there any chance of the assignments happening out of sequence? (Is my intent clear? Doing a sort of bucket roll here...) Sure, it WORKS this way in my tests. Sure, it seems logical to think that it would always work this way. Sure, you all do it...but do you KNOW? I can't seem to find anything in the Informix manuals that says this behavior will ALWAYS happen. Maybe it's in the SQL standard that these assignments are serialized as presented, but I don't happen to have a copy of the standard handy. For all I know, it's just a convenient side effect. The Trigger manuals document that multiple update triggers happen in column order, but there isn't anything anywhere that states what's going to happen here. Maybe the updates are happening in column order as well. It's seems like common sense would dicate, but we're talking computers and Informix here. Their common sense clearly differs from mine, from time to time. For all I know in OnLine 9.x they're going to allow table partitioning by column as well and "subtley change some engine behaviors". What a hoot that change would be to track down. This is really digusting because I have ONE statement in my ninety gazillion lines of code for this current application that does this. I could easily serialize it myself with two updates and be done with it. The second update would go zingy fast because everything is cached up the ying-yang and I'm hitting one whole row. If the assignment order changes, or is inherently undefined and JUST HAPPENS to work all the way up until the application hits "The Busy Season" then I get a phone call: "Why are our numbers suddenly completely hosed?" "Ummm...." "We need these numbers fixed immediately." "Well, I was kind of out the door to catch my non-refundable flight to Hawaii..." "And it seems the rest of the seasons numbers are also a mess..." "I have a snorkeling reservation, too..." So, anyway, just for the sake of curiosity, will that UPDATE ALWAYS work as intended? Thanx! -- Will Hartung - Hermosa Beach, Lower Left Coast. vfr750@netcom.com 1990 VFR750 - VFR=Very Red "Ho, HaHa, Dodge, Parry, Spin, HA! THRUST!" 1993 Explorer - Cage? Hell, it's a prison. -D. Duck