Designing a FOCUS Data Source

In this section:

The database management system enables you to create sophisticated hierarchical data structures. The following sections provide information to help you design an effective and efficient FOCUS data source and tell you how you can change the design after the data source has been created.


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Data Relationships

The primary consideration when designing a data source is the set of relationships among the various fields. Before you create the Master File, draw a diagram of these relationships. Is a field related to any other fields? If so, is it a one-to-one or a one-to-many relationship? If any of the data already exists in another data source, can that data source be joined to this one?

In general, use the following guidelines:

The following illustration summarizes the rules for data relationship considerations:


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Join Considerations

If you plan to join one segment to another, remember that both the host and cross-referenced fields must have the same format, and the cross-referenced field must be indexed using the INDEX attribute. In addition, for a cross-reference in a Master File, the host and cross-referenced fields must share the same name. The name or alias of both fields must be identical, or else the name of one field must be identical to the alias of the other.


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General Efficiency Considerations

A FOCUS data source reads the root segment first, then traverses the hierarchy to satisfy your query. The smaller you make the root segment, the more root segment instances can be read at one time, and the faster records can be selected to process a query.

You can also improve record substitution efficiency by setting AUTOPATH. AUTOPATH is the automation of TABLE FILE ddname.fieldname syntax, where the field name is not indexed, and physical retrieval starts at the field name segment. AUTOPATH is described in the Developing Reporting Applications manual.

As with most information processing issues, there is a trade-off when designing an efficient FOCUS data source: you must balance the desire to speed up record retrieval, by reducing the size of the root segment, against the need to speed up record selection, by placing fields used in record selection tests as high in the data structure as possible. The segment location of fields used in WHERE or IF tests is significant to the processing efficiency of a request. When a field fails a record selection test, there is no additional processing to that segment instance or its descendants. The higher the selection fields are in a data structure, the fewer the number of segments that must be read to determine a record status.

After you have designed and created a data source, if you want to select records based on fields that are low in the data structure, you can rotate the data structure to place those fields temporarily higher by using an alternate view. Alternate views are discussed in Describing a Group of Fields. For details on using alternate views in report requests, see the Creating Reports With WebFOCUS Language manual.

Use the following guidelines to help you design an efficient data structure:


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Changing a FOCUS Data Source

After you have designed and created a FOCUS data source, you can change some of its characteristics simply by editing the corresponding attribute in the Master File. The documentation for each attribute specifies whether it can be edited after the data source has been created.

Some characteristics whose attributes cannot be edited can be changed if you rebuild the data source using the REBUILD facility, as described in Creating and Rebuilding a Data Source. You can also use REBUILD to add new fields to a data source.


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