You access CA-IDMS records
and sets, one record at a time, using the CA-IDMS INFILE and INPUT
statements.
By specifying options
in the INFILE statement, you can generate navigational DML calls to
CA-IDMS. To issue the appropriate DML calls, you need a thorough
knowledge of the database structure.
The CA-IDMS access method
that you need to use depends on how the sets were defined to the database.
The access methods are CALC, CURRENT, DBKEY, OWNER, SORT KEY, or
WITHIN.
The DATA step interface
determines what type of access method to generate the calls for, based
on the DML function call and options that you specify in the INFILE
statement. Valid DML functions are OBTAIN, FIND, BIND, ACCEPT, GET,
IF, and RETURN. The OBTAIN and GET functions are the only functions
that retrieve a record's contents from the database.