Views and More views

REPLY-TO: lugnut@columbia.com ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' Message Of The Moment: A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no responsibility at the other. X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL13] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 2139 Reply-To: lugnut@columbia.com Office: Wayward 4gl Programmers Local 3129 Message Of The Moment: A successful tool is one that was used to do something undreamed of by its author. -- S. C. Johnson I've found myself in the posistion of having to work on the Fourgen AR system in a situation where the client is needing to access customer information out of another database system instead of the Fourgen AR customer master. Examination of the AR internals has shown that the customer information record is RAMPANT throughout the entire system (much of this is a side effect of a very de-normalized data structure (but thats not important)). I have 3 options. 1. Duplicate Info sets with batch processing to keep the two synched. Drawbacks: Client has threatened my (and family too) existance if I use this method :-) 2. Use the OTHER database customer master and rename ALL refrences in AR to look there instead. This will mean adding key coulmns needed in AR to the other databases table. Its owner is NOT real excited about that approach. "Does the word *NO!* mean anything to ya?" :-) Drawbacks: Messy, untested, and FREEZES the AR application from future upgrades to Fourgen's AR modules without extensive modifications every time. 3. Create a master customer record that has ALL the columns needed by BOTH databases. Create synonym links to make that master appear "local" to both databases, Create VIEWS for EACH database that are *exactly* what their native customer table is (using column aliasing where needed). THIS IS MY PREFERRED APPROACH.... My questions then are thus... What if any performance impact will be realized in this approach? Will the view utilize the master tables indexing? My Oracle background told me views were NOT updateable, and I just hit on the realization that Informix Views ARE (as long as its a simple view which these would be). Anyhow I need Input as how this idea can (OR CAN'T) be shot down. ANY FEEDBACK WOULD BE MUCHLY APPRECIATED Thanks a ToN Don "looking for ways to avoid a rewrite" Bolton _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ |-------------------------------| Jon Alder | WORK - jon@columbia.rain.com | Columbia Sportswear | HOME - jon@columbiasd.win.net | Portland, Oregon | Where ever you go... | 1-503-286-3676 x172 |-------------------------------|