BYTE data type

Hello world, I will shortly commence porting a complete application, that runs happily using Oracle and DB2, to Informix. The port will be conducted using Informix Online V7.1 and ESQL/COBOL, however I currently only have the manuals and software for Online V6.0 available to me. The application contains some columns that can contain binary data, effectively BYTE data types. In all instances, however, the length of these columns is less than 1000 bytes. From my reading of the V6.0 documentation and initial testing it would appear I NEED to define these columns as BYTE and make the modifications to the application code to access the column as specified in the ESQL/COBOL manual. The occurrence of these columns has not been documented precisely previously since both Oracle and DB2 can cater for binary data effectively, so unless I find a simpler solution I have much analysis to do. This being the case, does anyone have any information on the overheads involved in accessing columns defined as BYTE? Since all columns are less than 1000 bytes in length is it better to store the column interspersed with the other columns? Additionally, I would appreciate any other suggestions you may have regarding my assumptions and proposed solution. Thanks. -- Regards, Chris ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chris Wegener Mincom Pty Ltd, Database Consultant Wyandra Street, | | | | | | chrispw@tenmail.mincom.oz.au Teneriffe, Brisbane, | | | | | | Phone: +61 7 303 3333 X2288 Queensland, | | | | | | Fax: +61 7 303 3232 Australia 4005 |M |I |N |C |O |M ------------------------------------------------------------------------------