most recent records question

[Richard D. Williams]

Bob,

It was always my understanding it was a no-no to building indexes on 
system maintained fields.
Is this no longer correct?

Mark,

Could you build another file with real fields to hold these system 
maintained values and use it to get you
where you want to go?

Richard D. Williams

Bob Stockler wrote:

>On Mon, Jul 26, 2004 at 03:06:29PM -0400, Mark Luljak wrote:
>| Let's assume I have records somewhere.  Let us assume they have no actual
>| manually defined date/time fields.
>| 
>| A few questions about pulling the most recent records for the last 'x'
>| period:
>| 
>| 1) Can you build an index on system-maintained fields like @cd or @ud (and
>| their associated time fields?
>
>Yes, you can create indexes using @cd, @bd and @ud.
>
>These date fields don't have associated time fields.
>
>A record created by processing will have the same date in @cd
>and @bd, with @ud being empty.  A record created in IUA will
>have the same date in @cd and @ud, with @bd being empty.
>
>Bob
>
>| 2) Will @ud be set to @cd if the record was created but never updated, or
>| would one have to do a separate search?
>| 
>| 3) I'm assuming that if you -could- build an index across both @cd at ct, and
>| make it descending, you could set the comparison date and time to now and
>| check mathematically for your 'x' interval and stop when getnext exceeds
>| the bounds of your check criteria?  Or do those fields actually let you
>| sort chronologically at all?  If they do, what kind of field do you create
>| for a key comparison?
>| 
>| I know what I'm after, I'm not sure about the best way to go about it
>| -without- having to modify the tables that would already be extant.  I
>| feel it's either desirable, nor acceptable to have to modify every table
>| and manually try to fill in user-defined fields, for a drop-in module such
>| as I'm planning.  (Still planning, still not convinced I should do it, but
>| still marshalling thoughts and minutia.)
>| 
>| Suggestions are welcome.
>| 
>| mark->
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