ROWID columns
Informix®
When creating a table, Informix automatically adds a
ROWID integer column (applies to non-fragmented tables only).
The ROWID column is auto-filled with a unique number and can be used like a
primary key to access a given row.
Informix ROWID usage was a
common practice in the early days of Informix
4GL programming. Today it is recommended to define all your database tables with a
PRIMARY KEY to uniquely identify rows.
With Informix, the sqlca.sqlerrd[6]
register contains the ROWID of the last row affected by an INSERT,
UPDATE or DELETE statement.
IBM® DB2®
IBM DB2
ROWID columns were introduced in version 9.7. Unlike Informix integer row ids, DB2 row
ids are based on VARCHAR(16) FOR BIT DATA (128 bit integer) that are usually
represented as a 32 char hexadecimal representation of the value. The IBM DB2 ROWID is
actually an alternative syntax for RID_BIT(), and a qualified reference to
ROWID like tablename.ROWID is equivalent to
RID_BIT(tablename).
x'070000000000000000000065CE770000'SELECT * FROM customer WHERE ROWID = x'070000000000000000000065CE770000'SELECT * FROM customer WHERE HEX(ROWID) ='070000000000000000000065CE770000'Solution
If your Genero BDL
application uses rowid columns, review the program logic to use primary keys insead. If the database
table does no define a primary key, it should be added. All references to
SQLCA.SQLERRD[6] must be removed, because this variable will not hold the
ROWID of the last modified row.
The DB2 database driver will convert the
ROWID keyword to HEX(ROWID), so it can be used as a
VARCHAR(32) with the hexadecimal representation of the BIT DATA.
You need however to replace all INTEGER variable definitions by
VARCHAR(32) or CHAR(32).
To emulate Informix integer ROWIDs, you can also use
the DB2 GENERATE_UNIQUE built-in function, or
the IDENTITY attribute of the INTEGER or BIGINT
data types.
ROWID", the translation can be controlled
with the following FGLPROFILE
entry:dbi.database.dsname.ifxemul.rowid = { true | false }