RE: Database design question

["tim" <tim2006@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for the feedback sofar.

I will be editing using cgidev2 html. So no green-screen restrictions.

-----Original Message-----
From: rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:rpg400-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Alan Campin
Sent: Thursday, August 09, 2007 1:03 PM
To: rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Database design question

<snip>
I have to design a database that will hold notes keyed by a user. These
notes can be anywhere from a few words to a several hundred. Notes will
be tracked by user/date/time. There can be hundreds of separate notes
entered each day, so this database will get rather large.

As far as defining the actual field that will hold the note. I would
like some design feedback. Should it be fixed, variable, other.
</snip>

My two cents would be to define it as variable and a fixed part equal to
what would be your average length. 

If you define the field as 512a and on the average the note is 50a or
less you would use VARLEN(50) in DDS.

In SQL.

MESSAGE_TEXT FOR COLUMN SMMSGTXT    VARCHAR(512) ALLOCATE(50)

Big question is how does it get edited? You only have a small amount of
space on a green screen.