Re: TEXT or VARCHAR or what else?

Louis C Lam (louislam@iastate.edu) wrote: : Hi all. : I am implementing a trouble report mechanism with Informix using a WWW : interface. : I need a way to store the history of the trouble reports, Since the : history can grow fairly large, so I think I should use TEXT or VARCHAR. : However, with VARCHAR, I cannot put carriage returns. (or can I?) The bigger problem with VARCHAR is the 255 character limit, which I assume would be limiting. : with TEXT, I cannot search or use INSERT. You could create an interface that scans the TEXT blob and creates a keyword table that is linked to the TEXT row. This would be a Unix shell or 'c' solution and not pure 4GL, however. I don't know what you mean by "us[ing] INSERT". You can LOCATE a BLOB and then INSERT it into the database, and if you mean insert mode (vs overstrike) during editing, that would depend on the editor you choose. : Any idea? Another possiblity is an array of CHAR fields, one for each line of the problem. Your database design changes slightly: CREATE TABLE trouble_rpt (trouble_srl SERIAL NOT NULL,... ); CREATE TABLE trouble_detl (trouble_srl INTEGER NOT NULL, trouble_seq SMALLINT NOT NULL, {starts at 1 for each trouble_srl} trouble_txt CHAR(80) ); ======================================================================= Dennis J. Pimple dennisp@informix.com Opinions expressed Senior Consultant -------------------- are mine, and do not Informix Software Inc Voice: 303-850-0210 necessarily reflect Denver Colorado USA Fax: 303-779-4025 those of my employer.