RE: Cobol redefine in SQL

I'm looking for a solution that is using only one table not multiple tables. In fact a dynamic column redefinition feature (cobol redefines) is what I need in Oracle SQL.

Stephane

-----Original Message-----
Carel-Jan
Sent: 26 novembre, 2003 17:29
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

At 13:34 26-11-03 -0800, you wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>We'll do a conversion from IMS to Oracle (817).
>The conversion team wants to move data on Oracle then processed it.
>
>Off course, in the file format, the cobol redefine command is used on a
>filler field (20 times). There is also a redefine command in a redefine
>command.
>
>For the younger ones, it means a zone (50 caracters) that can be defined
>in many ways depending on a key : 2 fields of 25 char or 5 fields of 10
>char or ....
>
>The programmers can always use substring to death to work this out but I
>was wandering if there was a more elegant and a less error prone solution,
>maybe using a record type or a function ...
>
>
>
>Stephane Paquette

Hi Stephane,

How are you loading the data into the Oracle database? Do you use SQL*Loader? Go to the manual and look at the examples, it is quite straightforward defining multiple record layouts, and have them loaded into defferent tables. This can be done based on the record-type indicator which will be in the record. You can handle your redefines and repeating groups with SQL*Loader.

Last year I've written a kind of replication mechanism which replicates a Cobol C-Isam system into an Oracle database on a daily basis. Different record layouts can be stored in differend tables, or in the same table in different columns. The latter I do not recommend. This will giive you a nice headstart converting the data into the ultimate datamodel.

Regards, Carel-Jan

• There will allwasy be another 10 last bugs --

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