I believe there is some technical problem, so the same post that i posted is appearing 3 times. sorry for the inconvnience…
Hi All,
I know that ISN is unique.I want to know whether descriptor(key) unigue or is it must be non unigue? If it is a unique, then what is the difference between ISN and KEY?
Thanks,
Rohan.
When you define a descriptor you may specify that it be unique. If you don
It is your choice to define a descriptor or superdescriptor as unique. You can have more than one unique descriptor on a file (I don’t recommend it, but it is “legal” for Adabas). It is also legal (again I don’t recommend it) to allow null values for a unique descriptor. An ISN will always exist whether or not you use it directly and only one per record.
A unique descriptor can be alphanumeric, numeric or any valid Adabas format. An ISN is always an internal number assigned by Adabas. You can update the values, including unique descriptors, of a record, but you can’t update the ISN (of course, you can delete it and add it again).
So, yes, there is some overlap between the ISN and a unique descriptor, but one (ISN) is a system-managed value and the other is application managed. Either can uniquely identify a given record.