Sorry if I'm late with this comment but I'm a digester (sounds like something I'd use on the farm!) - so even by responding to the last comment in yesterdays digest, the topic will have moved on/died by the time this gets posted - so I'll just say what I did to control the Uv Schema integrity.
1. Set up all dictionaries in an account that the DBA owns, and give all programmers Read and Execute permission only (they needed execute or the I-types would not work). Come to think of it that was just about all - apart for some rules. Rules are things people who like a regular pay-cheque (or for the foreigners "pay-check") tend to adopt quite readily. There were not many rules but it went something like this: 1."You can do what you like on the development system (even create you own "unofficial dictionaries/schemas") but when software goes to the live system only the "official dictionaries" will be transfered - and they are sanctioned by me. Thus a programmer could experiment with novel ideas, but only officially documented changes would go live - so there was no point in scullduggery. The "official dictionaries" were maintained using "A-Dict-Ed" (a VB/Objects GUI), and it maintained field names, cross referencing, data definitions - i.e. an explanatory definition that could be as short as "seqence number" or even longer than this posting - fortunately we all know how long a variable length record is. Often I would cut'n paste the data definition from a spec, or from a similar definition and then tweek it, if required. Each field/attribute defined on the system was used as a key, to a record in a "Repository" (dict.dict was already taken) containing a MV list of all files where the attribute appeared, with it's context (i.e. a key, a foreign key, or a non-key) in as associated MV, plus a few more associated MV's for length & justification, etc. Thus when say a product code was added to an invoice schema, all the dictionary attributes were defaulted from the Repository - simples! There was no anarchy on my watch - and if someone did transgress "accidentally" I had two ways to spot it. If A-Dict-Ed read a schema and one of the attributes was not defined in the Repository it would lock me in until I'd completed the definition. Failing that, a simple databasic utility would run each week and report and schema/data anomalies. The utility was part of a comprehensive suite but essentially warned if there were more attributes than the schema expected, amongst other things. Before anyone say's "but what if you got run down by a bus/truck? (I lied.... I was only a part-time DBA with 2 part-time deputies, plus everyone had access to ADictEd - they just could not write/save any changes. There may still be few on this list who saw it in action. Sadly, that business has parted company with Uv, with little intervention from IBM. regards, Ray. _______________________________________________ U2-Users mailing list U2-Users@listserver.u2ug.org http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
