Re: IUS: Datablades & portability

In article <340db6ef.44494169@gate.idg.no>, Nils.Myklebust@idg.no wrote: > > adw@ovum.com wrote: > > ...snip... > > : DataBlades are > :_bundles_ of related underlying IUS functionality. Apart from its core > :SQL-92 functionality, IUS offers additional features including > : > : .Row types (which can be used to define "record type" columns or tables) > :'Collection types (set, multiset and list) 'Distinct and opaque types > :(which can be used to create user-defined types) 'User defined functions > :(on built-in or user-defined types) 'Table-level inheritance 'The Virtual > :Table Interface and Virtual Index Interface (which can be used to add > :custom storage and access methods) > > All these features of IUS are so usefull I can hardly wait to get my > hands on it and start using it. I am only waiting for it to be > available at a reasonably priced platform (Linux would be ideal with > SCO Unix and Windows NT as distant second choices). > > At the user conference (last year and this year) Stonebraker was also > talking about reference types for columns. That is a column could > contain a reference to a row in some table (a pointer). > I can't find anything about this in the IUS 9.1 manuals (downloaded > from the Informix web pages). > Such a datatype would seem to be very usefull even though C.J.Date > would have (and reportadly have) balked at such a feature. > > Does anyone know if reference column types are currently available or > are planned for some future version of IUS? My contacts at Informix tell me this Illustra feature didn't actually make it into Universal Server 9.1 (although the IUS 9.1 documentation I have suggest that it did - apparently erroneously and now corrected). The proposed IUS 9.1 reference type support was quite lightweight - based on Informix's serial datatype so not particularly fast and with REFs only unique within a table (cf. Oracle8's OIDs which can be globally unique and which can use a "hidden" row id in REFs for fast navigation). Full OID support was planned for IUS 9.2, but given recent events it wouldn't be too surprising if these plans were revised. > Nils.Myklebust@idg.no > NM Data AS, P.O.Box 9090 Gronland, N-0133 Oslo, Norway > My opinions are those of my company > The Informix FAQ is at http://www.iiug.org David Wells Ovum -------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====----------------------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet