Inserting and Deleting Data

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Inserting and Deleting Data

Some opaque data types might require special processing before they are saved to or removed from disk. The following support functions perform this special processing:

assign()
destroy()
update()
deepcopy()

Important:

These support functions must be named assign, destroy, update, and deepcopy. The names are case insensitive.

The assign() and destroy() functions are required for opaque types that include smart large objects or multirepresentational data. If the data is stored in a smart large object, the internal structure of the opaque data type contains the LO handle to identify the location of the data; it does not contain the data itself. The assign(), update(), and deepcopy() support functions decide how and where to store the data, and the destroy() support function decides how to remove the data, regardless of where it is stored.

These functions use the mi_* memory allocation functions that are documented in the IBM Informix: DataBlade API Function Reference. For detailed discussions about multirepresentational data types, refer to the DataBlade Developers Corner of the IBM Informix Developer Zone at www.ibm.com/software/data/developer/informix.