RE: Lists of Names

By moving to INFORMIX (hope it is ESQL/C), I feel that U can use the following method: 1. DECLARE name_cur SCROLL CURSOR FOR SELECT name,<other flds> FROM <tabname> ORDER BY name. 2. After the user enters the first few characters of the name (into few_chars), execute the following SELECT stmt. to find the position of that record in the cursor. SELECT count(*) INTO $pos FROM <tabname> WHERE name < $few_chars ORDER BY name. 3. FETCH ABSOLUTE $pos+1 name_cur will give you the first record for the few characters entered. 4. From there, Use FETCH NEXT name_cur OR FETCH PREVIOUS name_cur to get the remaining records to be displayed on the scree or to allow browsing. Hope this helps U ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Javeed Anwar T e-mail : javi@psi.ernet.in PSI Data Systems Phone : (91 80) 5585726 19,Primrose Road Bangalore 560025 INDIA ------------------------------------------------------------------------- M. Livenspargar wrote: :I'm curious: what are the best ways to handle lists of names in an :Informix environment such that a user can enter a name and get a :reasonable list of names from which to choose. In my current :environment, which uses ISAM files, we have a large number of names, :many of which are the same as others and are not in fact the same :person. : :Currently, we allow the user to enter as much of the name as they :choose to enter, then provide an onscreen alphabetical list such that :the (partial) name entered would appear in the middle of the names on :the screen. The user can scroll forward in the list or backward in the :list, to the ends of the file if they so chose. To implement this, we :have two files: one indexes the names in ascending alphabetical order, :and the other indexes the names in descending alphabetical order. : :I would guess that we do not want to try to duplicate this exactly as :we move to Informix. The "forward" select and the "backward" select :might each select hundreds of thousands of records - since I'm :currently in a development environment and don't have the database :loaded with that many records and can't test it, I'm guessing that :response time in an online program using that strategy would be :unacceptable. : :I look forward to and appreciate your responses. : :Thanks, :M. Livenspargar :