Re: Re[3]: SQL-defined files/tables

["David Morris" <dmorris@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Eric,

I suspect that one of the biggest problems with user defined data types is that 
very few shops have a C compiler.  Without the compiler, you will not be able 
to do much with them in SQL because you cannot create a sourced UDF.  This 
makes them much less capable than system data types.  In the future, I have 
heard that this limitation will be removed, but it may be too late.

David Morris

>>> doulos1@home.com 12/08/00 11:43AM >>>
Hello D,

Friday, December 08, 2000, 6:34:00 AM, you wrote:

> Eric,

> How about an example?  For an SQL newbie...

Here you go! Straight from the IBM web site at:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/pubs/html/as400/v4r4/ic2924/info/db2/rbafzmstch2data.htm#Header_107
 

Distinct Types A distinct type is a user-defined data type that shares
its internal representation with a built-in data type (its "source
type"), but is considered to be a separate and incompatible type for
most operations. For example, the semantics for a picture type, a text
type, and an audio type that all use the built-in data type BLOB for
their internal representation are quite different. A distinct type is
created with the SQL statement CREATE DISTINCT TYPE.

For example, the following statement creates a distinct type named AUDIO: 

  CREATE DISTINCT TYPE AUDIO AS BLOB (1M)...


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