Re: IUS: Datablades & portability

Hi! REF types are in IUS, but not the full functionality and it's not yet supported or documented. You CAN create a table with a REF but when you start to use it, things gets weird. This is what the syntax looks like: CREATE ROW TYPE foo(bar INTEGER); CREATE TABLE foobar(foobar1 REF(foo)); Note that this is the proposed SQL3 syntax. I tested this is 9.1. Anyone with a newer version out there that can test if this works any better now... Karlsson adw@ovum.com wrote: > 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