Schema Generator, Data Dictionary Questions

I am building a combination schema generator which produces a dbschema-like sql command file for database creation. Additionally, it supports a minimal data dictionary. The basic idea of the schema generator is to populate two tables very similar to systables and syscolumns via forms, then extract and generate the sql command text file. PROBLEMS At this point I am having trouble reverse engineering values in the syscolumns.collength field back to their english equivalents which were used to build the column when the table was created (or last altered). The formula used to compute the values is data-dependant. For chars it is easy, for others not so easy. As an example the formula used to compute collength for decimal data is: collength = (precision * 256) + scale where precision and scale are chosen at variable declaration, as in: create table foo ( bar decimal(precision,scale) ); Given a collength, the formula has two unknowns, making it impossible to solve (a collength of 256 could be produced with precision = 1 and scale = 0, or precision = 0 and scale = 256). QUESTIONS I was wondering if anyone out there in Informixland already has heard of or built such a product? How does Informix reverse-engineer the collengths back to useable values? There must be another system table somewhere. Anyone out there know how Informix does it? No data dictionary questions (yet, it's a very simple dictionary). Bill Gale bgale@portal.hq.videocart.com