Utility Reference

OAHELPER

OAHELPER is used to generate an initial prototype of an Omnidex Environment Catalog Source file against a target database. A text editor is then used to manually manipulate the generated source code to add desired characteristics.

OAHELPER works against any supported database that contains an internal schema such as Oracle, Sybase, Informix, TurboImage or an ODBC accessible data base.

OAHELPER does not work against file structures such as POSIX flat files or VMS RMS files that do not support an internal data schema.

Use a text editor to manually create a source file when OAHELPER is not an option.

Oracle Numeric Datatypes

NUMBER is a proprietary datatype invented and used by Oracle to store all numeric datatypes. It encompasses numbers of all sizes and precisions. Oracle will never return data in this datatype, and they don’t publish its format. When using Oracle (even in non-OA Oracle apps that only use Oracle API), a valid numeric datatype, INTEGER, FLOAT, etc..., must be specified. Knowledge of the data is required to pick the correct type.

OAHELPER will always use a FLOAT 8 because that datatype is capable of handling the largest precision and largest numbers. It is recommended, though, that someone with knowledge of the data edit the environment file and alter those values to FLOAT 4, INTEGER 4, INTEGER 2 or INTEGER 1 in order to preserve space and improve OA performance.

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