CA-Datacom/DB Essentials

CA-Datacom/DB and CA-DATADICTIONARY Software

CA-Datacom/DB is a database management system (DBMS). The databases are fully defined with CA-DATADICTIONARY.

A CA-Datacom/DB database consists of various entity-types, which can occur one or more times. For example, a database has areas, files, and records. Each data record in a table has one or more fields. The order of the data records is determined by the value for the field specified as the Native Key. Each field contains one type of data, and each record can hold one data value for each field, except that a repeating field can assume many values.

Note: CA-Datacom/DB views are not supported by the SAS/ACCESS interface to CA-Datacom/DB. [cautionend]

CA-DATADICTIONARY is a central, integrated, and active control facility that provides the basis for shared and consistent system resource management. As a repository for descriptive data, CA-DATADICTIONARY is your tool for the following tasks:

managing definitions and syntax
enforcing naming conventions
creating data relationships
managing test and production environments

CA-DATADICTIONARY enables you to collect information in categories called entity-types. Any data you enter into CA-DATADICTIONARY is associated with a category, that is, an entity. For example, DATABASE, AREA, and FIELD are some specific CA-DATADICTIONARY entities.

Each instance within the entity is an entity-occurrence. For example, defining a database involves storing information about the database in the DATABASE occurrence. Each database is listed by its unique name as an occurrence of the DATABASE entity.

Each occurrence has specific attributes such as data type. These attributes enable you to describe specific properties of each occurrence. For example, you can specify the type of data that a field contains or whether a key is a Master Key or a Native Key. The actual information you store for each attribute is an attribute value. In addition, CA-DATADICTIONARY enables you to define support data, such as aliases, CA-Datacom/DB descriptors, text, and relationships.

CA-DATADICTIONARY enables you to have many copies (versions) of the same occurrence. Each version of an occurrence can have one status at a given time. Only TEST and PROD are used with the SAS/ACCESS interface to CA-Datacom/DB. The five status values are as follows:

TEST
PROD (for production)
HIST (for history)
INCO (for incomplete)
QUAL (for qualified production)

Depending on your site, you might find that using CA-DATADICTIONARY interactively is more efficient for some tasks, while other tasks are simpler with batch jobs.

For more information about CA-DATADICTIONARY and other CA-Datacom/DB features or administration of CA-Datacom/DB databases, see the appropriate CA-Datacom/DB documentation.

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