Specifications

Working with database components
76 InfoMaker
Extended attributes
Extended attributes enable you to store information about a table’s columns in
special system tables. Unlike tables, keys, indexes, and database views (which
are DBMS-specific), extended attributes are InfoMaker-specific. The most
powerful extended attributes determine the edit style, display format, and
validation rules for the column.
For more information about extended attributes, see “Specifying column
extended attributes” on page 88. For more information about the extended
attribute system tables, see Appendix B, “The Extended Attribute System
Tables.”
Additional database
components
Depending on the database to which you are connected and on your user
privileges, you may be able to view or work with a variety of additional
database components through InfoMaker. These components might include:
Driver information
Groups
Metadata types
Procedures and functions
Users
Logins
Triggers
Events
Web services
For example, driver information is relevant to ODBC connections. It lists all
the ODBC options associated with the ODBC driver, allowing you to
determine how the ODBC interface will behave for a given connection. Login
information is listed for Adaptive Server® Enterprise database connections.
Information about groups and users is listed for several of the databases and
allows you to add new users and groups and maintain passwords for existing
users.
You can drag most items in these folders to the Object Details view to display
their properties. You can also drag procedures, functions, triggers, and events
to the ISQL view.
Trigger information is listed for Adaptive Server Enterprise and SQL
Anywhere tables. A trigger is a special form of stored procedure that is
associated with a specific database table. Triggers fire automatically whenever
someone inserts, updates or deletes rows of the associated table. Triggers can
call procedures and fire other triggers, but they have no parameters and cannot
be invoked by a
CALL statement. You use triggers when referential integrity
and other declarative constraints are insufficient.