Informix Error -523

-523 Can only recover, repair or drop table.

This statement (RECOVER, REPAIR, or DROP) specifies a view. However, these statements are only supported for real tables, not views. In the case of DROP, if you drop any of the tables used in the view, the view will be removed as well. To recover or repair this table, you must recover or repair the tables on which the view is defined. For a way to list the names of tables that are views, see the discussion of error -394.

Oninit® Troubleshooting Guidance

Reasons / Common Causes

-523 fires when RECOVER TABLE, REPAIR TABLE, or DROP TABLE is issued against a view — those three statements only operate on real, storage-backed tables.

RECOVER TABLE or REPAIR TABLE targeting a view — per the official guidance, these operate on the physical table structure, which a view doesn't have.
DROP TABLE (rather than DROP VIEW) issued against a view by mistake, since the two statements aren't interchangeable even though both remove a named object.
Confusion between a view and the base table it's built from, especially where naming conventions make the two hard to tell apart at a glance.

Solutions / Resolution

For DROP, use DROP VIEW instead, since dropping a view is a separate statement from dropping a table:
```
DROP VIEW active_orders_view;
```
For RECOVER/REPAIR, target the underlying table(s) the view is built on, per the official guidance — recovering or repairing a view isn't meaningful; the real tables it selects from are what actually need recovery/repair.
Note that dropping a base table used by a view removes the view too, per the official guidance — a DROP TABLE on the underlying table cascades to any view defined on it.

Examples

The disallowed attempt

DROP TABLE active_orders_view;
-- -523: active_orders_view is a view

Corrected

DROP VIEW active_orders_view;

Repairing the real table behind a view

-- active_orders_view is defined as SELECT ... FROM orders WHERE status = 'active'
REPAIR TABLE orders;

Diagnostic Checks

Query systables to confirm whether a name refers to a view or a base table before issuing RECOVER/REPAIR/DROP TABLE against it:
```
SELECT tabname, tabtype FROM systables WHERE tabname = 'active_orders_view';
```
tabtype = 'V' indicates a view.

Related Errors / Related Topics

No closely related error codes are cross-referenced for -523 in this set yet.

RECOVER/REPAIR/DROP TABLE only apply to real tables — use DROP VIEW for a view, and target the underlying table(s) directly for recover/repair.