Re: Rowid range in Informix 7.x

In article <351a7c80.1030967593@news>, David Kosenko <dkosenko@monmouth.com> writes >David Williams <djw@smooth1.demon.co.uk> offerred: >: How come ISQL forms use rowid? >: >: I checked in the 4GL 4.0 manuals and they RECOMMENDED using rowid!! >: >: Bit of an about turn huh? > >You find this surprising? Once upon a time, single-threaded database servers >were the only way to go. That multi-threaded stuff was sheer nonsense. Of >course, that was *before* Informix re-engineered the server to be >multi-threaded. Then, muti-threaded was the only way to go. Times change ;-) > >Seriously, in practical terms, rowids were pretty useful, as they gave you quick >access to rows. As long as you understood the underlying issues and acted >accordingly, you were usually ok. Along came fragmentation, and suddenly rowids >were no longer unique for rows in a table. > Yes, it was nice to be able to say, at the physical (sector/page) level this is where the row is, please get it for me or update/delete it for me..unfortunately this is no longer possible... >From an relational database purists perspective, the only way to get a specific >row out of a table should be via its primary key, which was an aspect of the >data in the row. Any other identifier used to access a particular row violated >the "rules" of relational databases. > > >Dave >********** >"Everybody plays the fool, sometimes." -- David Williams Maintainer of the Informix FAQ Primary site (Beta Version) http://www.smooth1.demon.co.uk Official site http://www.iiug.org/techinfo/faq/faq_top.html I see you standin', Standin' on your own, It's such a lonely place for you, For you to be If you need a shoulder, Or if you need a friend, I'll be here standing, Until the bitter end... So don't chastise me Or think I, I mean you harm... All I ever wanted Was for you To know that I care