dirpath

While working on a development project we have encountered some bizzare problems with the "dirpath" in systables. It goes like this: If we alter a table after it's creation by adding an index or changing a field to NOT NULL, "dirpath" in systables gets an absolute path, for that table. At creation time all paths were relative. Not normally a problem except that this is a development environment and we have a carbon copy ( same name different DBPATH ) for our programmers. The idea being the we can do what we please with the "practice" database. If it breaks we make a new copy ( read that cpio ). With the absolute path in the dirpath field of systables the carbon copy is pointing back at the real one. We only had one nasty incident before we caught the absolute path problem ( or it caught us ). We're using version 2.10 of informix. Right now we keep a close eye on the dirpath any time we perform an alter. Earl Pray praye@zweibrucken-emh1.army.mil