Some new user questions

Hello all;

As the subject states, i'm a new user of Oracle. So new actually, that we have the software in house, but our hardware has yet to arrive. Anyway, i'm trying to garner some information for our user community and thought i'd ask here.

1. is there such a thing as an element synonym? i've read in the docs where you can define synonyms for tables, views etc etc, but have not seen any references to element synonyms. I have read about aliases, but they seem to be a kind of "on the fly" synonym. In our current environment (IBM 3090 MVS/ESA with IDMS) when an element is added a synonym can be assigned.
2. is there any functionality within Oracle that would allow you to maintain a description of elements within a table. not a description such as the describe command displays, but a description of what the element value means/is used for? we're not currently doing anything like this, but would like to in the future if possible.

I hope i've stated these questions correctly. As someone leaving the mainframe behind and about to embark on a journey into Unix (OSF/1) and Oracle, I will certainly appreciate any thoughts, tips, hints etc that you may have.

thanks in advance for any replies

David DeWolfe
Data Base Specialist
University of Alaska Computer Network
<sxdjd_at_orca.alaska.edu>      Received on Thu Apr 14 1994 - 20:43:08 CEST