In This Chapter

This chapter documents the SQL extensions that the Optical Subsystem supports to access WORM optical media. It provides examples that show you how to perform the following functions:

• Assign a TEXT or BYTE data column to an optical platter (CREATE TABLE).
• Create an optical cluster (CREATE OPTICAL CLUSTER).
• Reserve an optical volume (RESERVE).
• Release an optical volume (RELEASE).
• Set the mounting time-out (SET MOUNTING TIMEOUT).
• Locate the optical volume where a TEXT or BYTE column is stored (FAMILY() and VOLUME() functions).
• Use TEXT or BYTE data descriptors to enable multiple tables to share the same TEXT and BYTE data (DESCR() function).
• Migrate TEXT and BYTE data in an optical family from one Optical Subsystem to another (HPL, dbexport and dbimport).

The examples use the cat_descr and cat_picture TEXT and BYTE columns from the catalog table of the stores_demo database. You can use the optical SQL statements from DB–Access or from a program developed with one of the IBM Informix SQL APIs, such as IBM Informix ESQL/C.