Re: does Oracle table use FILLER

I never worked in IDMS, but I imagine, from other traditional record oriented
systems, the reason why you put FILLERS in. The reason must have been to permit
adding new fields to a record without altering the record length.

That way, existing programs that access records can access the new records without being recompiled to accomodate the new record length.

In general, programs access data in tables on a column by column basis. They encode the name of the column, not some kind of byte offset from the beginning
of the row. There are excpetions, but this is the general method.

When new columns are added to a table, the new columns will be completely transparent to programs that access the existing columns by name. No fillers
necessary.

Programs that write data into columns specifically by name will write NULL values into unnamed columns. This may or may not fill the requirements
when new columns are added. But the maintenance, when needed, is generally less painful that it is with FILLERS.

In short, don't use FILLERS unless you have a specific need that doesn't fit
well into the relational model.

mailto:david.cressey_at_dcressey.com

DXLBH_at_CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU wrote in message <99095.102458DXLBH_at_CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>...
>Hi All,
>
> I have been worked IDMS for all these years and started to move our IDMS
>system to Oracle. In IDMS, when we defines table, we always leave some
FILLER
>at end of table for future uses. Do we have to do that in Oracle database?
>thank you in advance for your help. Please copy your response to
>DXLBH_at_CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU also.
>
Received on Sat Apr 10 1999 - 14:56:12 CEST