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      <h1>Database Platforms - Flat Files</h1>
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      <p>&nbsp;</p>
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      <p><a href="Flat%20Files.htm">Flat Files</a></p>
      <p><a href="Environment%20File.htm">Environment File Declarations</a></p>
      <p><a href="Tab-Delimited%20Files.htm">Tab-Delimited Files (TDF)</a></p>
      <p>Omnidex Stand-Alone Tables (OST)</p>
      <p>&nbsp;</p>
      <p><a href="../Supported%20Database%20Platforms.htm">Database Platforms</a></p>
      <p>&nbsp;</p>
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      <h2>Omnidex Stand-Alone Tables (OST)</h2>
      <p>Omnidex Standalone Tables (OST) are self-describing datafiles that may 
        be directly referenced in SQL statements without having to be compiled 
        into the Omnidex Environment file. Each OST has a header that describes 
        the contents of the file including column names, datatypes, and lengths. 
        This allows as OST to be &quot;attached&quot; to an open Omnidex environment 
        and used in queries without being a permanent part of that environment.</p>
      <p>Like flat files, OSTs provide significant performance benefits over relational 
        database tables, and require significantly less disk space to maintain 
        the data. In comparison, OSTs behave nearly identical to flat files in 
        all respects. However, flat files must be defined in an Omnidex Environment 
        Catalog prior to use.</p>
      <p>OSTs differ from Tab-Delimited Files (TDF) in that data is stored in 
        its original form in an OST. Binary data is stored in binary form and 
        character data is stored in character form. TDFs store all data in character 
        form. TDFs use column and record delimiters; OSTs do not. TDFs provide 
        some compression of textual data with trailing whitespace. This is not 
        currently available with an OST, but is slated as a near future enhancement.</p>
      <ul>
        <li>In complex queries, it may be advantageous to accumulate results to 
          an intermediate table. Several queries may need to append to the same 
          intermediate table so, once complete, a final SELECT statement can be 
          issued against the intermediate table. </li>
        <li>In large data warehouses, it may be advantageous to preserve certain 
          aggregations in a temporary rollup table. Subsequent queries may read 
          this temporary rollup table, thus avoiding the re-aggregation of the 
          original data. </li>
        <li>It may be desirable to have multiple processes access the same SELECT...INTO 
          table. While SELECT...INTO produces a table that can be recorded in 
          the environment file and then accessed by multiple processes, this is 
          not a realistic option in many applications. OST's can serve the same 
          purpose and may be accessed immediately by multiple processes.</li>
      </ul>
      <p>OST's are created using the EXPORT command.</p>
      <p>Create an OST by exporting data with the OST option. The resulting file 
        will contain a &quot;.ost&quot; suffix on NT, UNIX and VMS platforms, 
        and an &quot;OT&quot; suffix on MPE/XL. OST's can then be accessed by 
        attaching them real-time to the process using the Omnidex Query Language 
        ATTACH command. Once attached, they can be accessed as a normal file. 
        The OST can be detached using the Omnidex Query Language DETACH command.</p>
      <p>An OST is known only to the current process, but may be attached to multiple 
        processes and multiple environments. An attached OST remains a part of 
        the environment for the life of the current process or until a DETACH 
        command is executed.</p>
      <p>OST's can be also declared in the environment file as a permanent file. 
        Declare the table TYPE as OST and use the PHYSICAL clause to identify 
        the file, minus the suffix.</p>
      <p>At this time it is not possible to install indexes on OST's.</p>
      <p>&nbsp;</p>
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