Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!vrdxhq!grebyn!paisano!demasi From: demasi@paisano.UUCP (Michael C. De Masi) Newsgroups: comp.databases Subject: Big fun w/Informix cursors. Message-ID: <147@paisano.UUCP> Date: Mon, 6-Jul-87 18:50:52 EDT Article-I.D.: paisano.147 Posted: Mon Jul 6 18:50:52 1987 Date-Received: Wed, 8-Jul-87 04:40:35 EDT Organization: AT&T Communications. Fairfax, VA Lines: 43 Keywords: Informix cursors stink Hello people! If any of you have seen these questions before, please bear with me since I've been off the net for a while while the machine I was on was going through some mental strain. Basically, what I was wondering if I had missed something regarding the cursor concept in Informix esql/c. The first question involves the use of the 'fetch' statement to advance the cursor through a queried list of rows from a given declare statement. Although fetch does a fine job in the forward direction, there seems to be no way to do what I would imagine would best be called an 'unfetch'. Ie, is it possible to back the cursor up a row (or more) to traverse already fetched data? It would certainly seem to be a nice thing to be able to do, and in fact is quite possible from the vanilla Informix generated screens. Is this just the way the database is designed, or am I missing something obvious? The second question involves active lists queried down for update purposes. Again, one might query the set and advance through it with fetch statements, but it seems that the first non-readonly activity performed after the query (ie an insert, deletion or update) somehow breaks the cursor making it impossible to use for any purpose. Now maybe I can buy the fact that these cursors were meant to be uni-directional, but am I to understand that they were designed to be as fragile as I've stated? Why bother to make it possible to query multiple records for update when making one change to one record makes the whole query inoperative? Again, it is entirely possible that I'm missing something wildly obvious, and would greatly appreciate having my errors pointed out to me in any format you'd like. Also, if you've had the same problems, please write and we can comiserate. Great to be back on the net! (By the way, the address is now paisan'o' instead of paisan'a'. And no, she didn't have a sex change, it's her brother, you pervert!) -- Michael C. De Masi - AT&T Communications (For whom I work and not speak) 3702 Pender Drive, Fairfax, Virginia 22030 Phone: 703-246-9555 UUCP: seismo!decuac!grebyn!paisano!demasi "Life. Don't tell me about life." - Marvin, the paranoid android