I am trying to find out if I will loose data if I delete and re-add an Ispec Screen Data item that was Output only and will be re-added as I-O.  I will not re-gen between deletion and re-adding, and will call the data item with the identical name.

The problem is that you can't change an Output only usage item to an I-O usage for some reason.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

1. Always backup your DB before a Re-Org!

2. You should be all right, as there is a compare phase for the re-org (differs on each platform) to see what the changes are and then takes the appropriate action.  Therefore a change from OUTPUT to I-O should cause a Generate, but should NOT cause a Reorg at all as the underlying table structure has not changed.

You can change an output Ispec to I-O easily.
Here is how :

Step 1
Make a data item current.
use DA; <fieldname> <Xmt> from the home position of the painter.

It will say that it is there cursor postion defined.

Step 2
As it is now current you simply give it the new attribute.
USAGE=IO

You might then have to specify a place to move it to.

Repeat for each item.

I am sure that this is the right procedure as I have done this - I can't check the actual syntax as I don't have access to host Linc at the moment.

Hi,
I presume your question is
1. Whether a Delete of an usage Ouput data item would cause loss of data associated with that data item
2. Will the existing data be retained if I delete an Usage Output data item and recreate it again under same name but with Usage IO.

1. Delete of usage Output data item will initiate reorg since it gets marked for reorg and data will be lost

2. In your instance, I presume that LINC understand Delete and Add function . Hence, when you delete the US; Output data item, it marks it as Delete and removes all the associated data. When you create another data item with same name, it allows you since there is no data item name conflicts and initializes that data item with initial values of Zeros/spaces - no data being new. Therefore, delete of an existing data item would be loss of data .

3. Now to Retain the data as well as need to Change US;Output to US;I-O , procedure described by 2StarSilver works. Please attempt and enlighten us also.

Thank you, Arul Varman

Hi,

AGMahesh is only correct if you delete your ISPEC, do a generate (re-org will delete your table), then you recreate your ispec and do another reorg to recreate your table.

If you refer to my first posting, you will see that LINC does NOT mark the table for delete. It is marked for generate.  It is the database compare phase of all generates that decides what to do with the database, and so long as the names have remained the same and attributes are the same then no net differences and no reorg.
You can quite hapily delete the isepc and recreate it and then generate and no reorg will occur.

If you do no Linc changes to the code but generate over an old database with a different structure, then you will get a reorg happen, as the structure is different.

I hope you can understand the reorg process now.

A-Series
=========
DAC phase does a DMSII DASDL compare. Reorg if changes shown.

Unix
======
Internal RDML table is extracted to a file. Linc generate creates an RDML.EXT file from the linc source being compiled. These are compared for differences and a reorg takes place correspondingly.

NT
===
I have no first hand experience of this, so cant say but assume same as Unix.

1100/2200
==========
Too long ago for me to remember.


V-Series
=========
Too long ago for me to remember and I dont think it is supported any more.


ie. Reorg has Nothing to do with the Linc marking a screen for delete etc.

Regards.