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SELECT

Required statement
Applies to:	view descriptor
Interacts with:	RESET
Not allowed with:	UPDATE

Details

The SELECT statement specifies which PC file columns in the access descriptor to include in the view descriptor. This is a required statement and is used only when you create view descriptors. You cannot use the SELECT statement when you are updating a view descriptor.

If you use an editing statement, such as SELECT, it must follow the CREATE statement when you create a view descriptor. See CREATE for more information on the order of statements.

The SELECT statement can take one or more of the following arguments:

ALL

includes in the view descriptor all the columns that were defined in the access descriptor and that were not dropped.

column-identifier

can be either the column name or the positional equivalent from the LIST statement, which is the number that represents the column's place in the access descriptor on which the view is based. For example, to select the first three columns, submit the following statement:

select 1 2 3;

If the column name contains lowercase characters, special characters, or national characters, enclose the name in quotes. You can select as many columns as you want in one SELECT statement.

SELECT statements are cumulative within the same view creation. That is, if you submit the following two SELECT statements, columns 1, 5, and 6 are selected, not just columns 5 and 6:

select 1;
select 5 6;

To clear all your current selections when creating a view descriptor, use the RESET ALL statement; you can then use another SELECT statement to select new columns.

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