Hmmm. Very near of the table datatype of MSSQL, without the mess.
Very elegant. I loved it.

On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 16:14:51 -0500, Ann W. Harrison wrote:

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>Toward the end of the discussion of transient data sets about a month
>ago, I ran into the problem of using the very dynamic data sets with
>procedures, which are inherently static. At the time, I hoped for some
>insight that would let a procedure accept references to something that
>didn't exist - wasn't even defined - when the procedure was created.
>
>That's a dead-end. The most similar problem that came to mind is a
>preprocessed program that creates and uses tables. The preprocessor
>ordinarily uses the system tables for the target database to find the
>table structures and field types for the data it uses. However, it also
>accepts a syntax like DECLARE RELATION ... that describes tables that
>will exist when the program is run, but do not currently exist. I
>suggest that transient data sets could be introduced to procedures in a
>similar fashion.
>
>Currently stored procedures declare variables in a sort of procedure
>preamble. They could declare the names of temporary data sets and the
>names and datatypes of their fields in the same fashion. During
>procedure compilation - from PSQL to blr - those declarations would be
>used to resolve references to temporary data sets - those defined
>within the procedure and those created outside the procedure.
>
>Not terribly elegant, but sufficient, I think.
>
>Regards,
>
>
>Ann
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