OpenEdge Data Management: DataServer for Microsoft SQL Server

ABL issues
• If you force the creation of a record before entering the value for the designated column
(for example, by committing a transaction or releasing or validating a record), the creation
fails if the column cannot have NULL values. If the column can have NULL values, the
DataServer assigns the new record a ROWID of NULL. However, if the column has an initial
value, the DataServer creates the row with that initial value as the ROWID.
Follow these guidelines when using ROWID in applications that you want to deploy across
multiple OpenEdge databases and/or MS SQL Server data sources:
• Do not try to get a record’s ROWID value before the user assigns values to the unique keys
of the record.
• Refresh the ROWID value if a value of a unique key might have changed.
Refresh the ROWID value after you undo a DELETE. The ROWID value might be different after
the record is recreated.
• ROWID values are stable for a session, but you cannot rely on them to be the same across
sessions.
Note: Reposition functions such as REPOSITION-BACKWARDS and REPOSITION-TO-ROW
typically use ROWID to identify records. Functions of this type require integer
expressions, which can be either INTEGER or INT64.
For a complete description of the ROWID function, see its reference entry in OpenEdge
Development: ABL Reference.
RECID function
For backward compatibility, the DataServer supports the RECID function for MS SQL Server
data source tables that have a unique 4-byte integer column defined as the key for the
ROWID/RECID index of a given table in the schema holder. Whenever the ROWID index selection
for a schema holder table in the Dictionary has multi-component key composite or is a
single-component key but not a single unique integer component, the RECID function is not
supported and the compiler will disallow the use of the RECID function in a WHERE clause.
Note: The ROWID function does not have this same restriction and is the recommended
alternative for this limitation.
When the Create RECID Field option is selected, the OpenEdge DB to MS SQL Server
migration utility creates an indexed column with unique values for each row called
PROGRESS_RECID. Starting with OpenEdge Release 10.1B, the field is defined as bigint and in
Release 10.1A or earlier, the field is defined as integer. You can also add this column to tables
manually if you are using an existing MS SQL Server database or if you ported an OpenEdge
database without the Create RECID Field option selected.
If the PROGRESS_RECID field does not exist in the table, the DataServer utility automatically
designates the index that meets the unique key criteria. For a complete description of the RECID
function, see its reference entry in OpenEdge Development: ABL Reference.
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