Re: SQL TABLES: COMMENT vs. LABEL

On 24-Jun-2011 13:32 , Gqcy wrote:

The windows group has just asked me if I could also generate the
same Field values in the LABEL construct as a COMMENT construct,
as they can't see the LABEL in their DB tools.
Does anyone do both? Pros? Cons?

One minor negative: The REM [remarks\comment\long-comment] text data is stored entirely in auxiliary data segments of the [i.e. columns such as DBXREM and DBIREM in system database cross-reference] SQL catalog files per data type VARCHAR. However any LABEL as column heading string more than 20 bytes are also stored separately. Both are therefore likely to be slower to access from the catalogs than the TEXT. Since the REMARKS data will always be there, there is little benefit to keeping the LABEL under 21 bytes. I seem to recall REMARKS can be turned off for SQLcolumns(), though I do not recall if that might then cause LABEL data to appear instead.?

When utilized, I preferred to have both; the COLUMN_TEXT for a succinct description and the column LONG_COMMENT for the verbose explanation. The Query/400 feature had F23=Long Comment, but checking an old release I do not see that from the interactive STRSQL prompter for the "Select and Sequence Fields" processing of that utility.

Regards, Chuck