Re: Max length of a VARYING field

[Buck <kc2hiz@xxxxxxxxx>]

> > But there is a practical real-world need to store large varying length
> > text in a single DB2 column.  Not terabytes, but say a megabyte.
>
> I agree, although I think the capability tends to get abused.  

Absolutely!  I don't think we're going to defend anything from abuse, 
but it is sort of silly to think about storing a movie as part of a 
customer record.  Unless your web customer is a viola student showing 
off her skills with a clip or two...  It's a new era, and I've been 
recently... encouraged to think outside the unit-record box.

> Isn't this what a Datalink field does for you?  The concern with datalinks,
> though, is that they aren't saved and restored with the SQL data.

Exactly, and so now we step straight into RPG's strong/weak point -- the 
tight integration with DB2 for i5 OS.  Without that tight integration, 
RPG is just a funky scripting language for SQL.  With it, the compiler 
folks need the database folks to er, cooperate :-)

All because we RPG programmers would like to store a _little_ more than 
32k in a database column.  It's been a fun thread!
  --buck