RE: UPDATE/INSERT BY NAME
>From: uunet!cix.compulink.co.uk!shemminga (Stuart Hemming)
>Subject: RE: UPDATE/INSERT BY NAME
>Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1992 15:51:00 +0000
>X-Informix-List-Id: <news.2192>
>Anyone from Informix care to comment? Unoffically of course 8-)
I'm not clear what the advantages of the UPDATE BY NAME operation are
supposed to be. In interactive SQL, there are no records, so the syntax
is irrelevant to dbaccess etc. And in I4GL, all it saves is a little bit
of typing for less clarity of program. I don't see any major advantages to
the syntax. Against it, it would be highly non-standard and bears no
resemblance to anything I know of which is likely to occur in any future
SQL standard. I'd have to rate UPDATE BY NAME as a non-starter.
I'm even less clear of the advantages of INSERT BY NAME.
Someone else suggested CREATE TEMP TABLE LIKE record.* -- similar
arguments apply here too.
So all in all, I'm not in the least bit convinced. You could try running
the proposal past me again since I deleted the original as something I
wasn't going to answer, but I don't think it'll make much difference to my
views on it.
Yours unofficially,
Jonathan Leffler (johnl@obelix.informix.com) #include <disclaimer.h>