5.8 Is it possible to specify a column alias in a select statement with Allbase? I have a select statement in which the column list contains expressions. This select is launched from a WEB server using Microsoft IDC technology to display the result in a WEB browser. It works fine except for one thing: I cannot see all the columns. With other RDBMSs, there is a workaround: use column aliases in the select. But I cannot seem to figure out how to do this in Allbase.
From Michael Gueterman:
The ability to do ANSI standard column aliasing has been a SR for a long time, and has also been on the SIG Allbase enhancement list for some time.
The different ODBC driver vendors take different approaches to it since it isn't part of Allbase proper. Some, such as ODBCLink/SE, return the column name as given by Allbase (i.e. every column is named "(EXPR)" for expressions or "(CONST)" for constants), whereas other vendors 'fudge' that name a bit like appending a serialization number to that name to make it unique (i.e. "(EXPR1)", "(EXPR2)"). Therefore, even if you use a driver that can uniquely name the columns, you'll have to be very careful in your coding if you ever change the select statement, or change ODBC driver vendors.
The lack of column aliasing wasn't a big issue when most everything was host-based, but it is a big problem for client/server or web-based applications.
And, from Gary Biggs:
This is another of many, many annoying problems with the Allbase language and optimizer. The best work around is to create an Allbase view, where you can explicitly name columns that name expressions and then use that view from the client application. This also gives you the advantage of using a GENPLAN on the view to achieve optimal performance.