IMAGE/SQL: Issues and answers concerning SQL tables

Software

Papers & Training

Java

HP Partners

News & Events

Register for more info

1.2 How are TurboIMAGE/XL, ALLBASE/SQL, and IMAGE/SQL related?

Key points

IMAGE/SQL consists of three components:

1. TurboIMAGE/XL is a set of programs and procedures for defining, creating, maintaining and accessing TurboIMAGE/XL databases.
   • A database is a collection of data sets.
   • Each data set contains data entries, also known as records.
   • The physical storage manager is known as TurboIMAGE.
   • When writing a program to access data from the database, the developer includes calls to TurboIMAGE intrinsics.
   • The developer controls the data access path. For example, the developer controls whether a chained read or a serial read is used.

2. ALLBASE/SQL is a set of programs and procedures for creating, maintaining, and accessing ALLBASE/SQL DBEnvironments.
   • A DBEnvironment is a collection of SQL tables.
   • Each SQL table contains rows, also known as tuples.
   • The physical storage manager is known as DBCORE.
   • When writing a program to access data from the DBEnvironment, the developer includes industry-standard SQL statements.
   • The developer does not control the data access path. A second manager known as SQLCORE creates an access plan for each SQL query, and performs the appropriate sequence of calls to DBCORE.
   • SQLCORE uses information in a special set of SQL tables known as the system catalog when it generates the access plan. If the system catalog shows that an index exists on a table, then SQLCORE will probably ask DBCORE to perform an index scan instead of a serial scan.

3. Additional software (including the IMAGESQL utility) that registers information about a TurboIMAGE/XL database into the system catalog of an ALLBASE/SQL DBEnvironment. To SQLCORE, the TurboIMAGE data sets look like SQL tables, with one exception. SQL statements that update, insert, or delete data ultimately get routed to the TurboIMAGE storage manager when TurboIMAGE data sets are referenced.

   As a result, the large suite of client/server tools that support ALLBASE/SQL now support TurboIMAGE/XL too!

   The SQL part of IMAGE/SQL is ALLBASE/SQL. From an SQL point of view, the major difference between IMAGE/SQL and ALLBASE/SQL is the amount of data you can store in user SQL tables. In IMAGE/SQL the limit is 12 MegaBytes (3000 4K pages). In ALLBASE/SQL there is no limit.

Page last updated on November 29, 1995