At 09:57 AM 3/9/00 -0500, Steve Daniels wrote:
>I always believe where there's a will there's a way.   Back in our days of
>our Series 70, we had some detail data sets that had to be cleared out each
>day.  On the 70, a serial read then a delete in Query was too slow.  So, we
>used DBGENRL to clear out these data sets.  This would clear the detail data
>sets, but the automatic master records would be untouched.  To clean up the
>automatic masters, we would unload, erase, and load the database each
>weekend.  I would be willing to bet that DBGENRL would probably allow me to
>erase the automatic master and not touch the details.   If they could do it,
>you probably could do it.

<plug>
In old versions of DBGeneral it was possible to erase a detail set without
affecting
the corresponding master set entries.  This was permitted so certain types
of surgical repairs could be performed.  The user was instructed to perform
a separate step which would then remove the orphaned entries.  However,
this is no longer possible, as the orphaned auto-master entries are
automatically removed as a part of the erase processing.  Without looking
at the code specifically, I do not believe users are permitted to erase a
master set which has entries in corresponding detailsets.

IMAGE itself does not allow anyone to remove master entries which have
entries in corresponding detail sets.  If this was allows, there would be
significant ramifications in the structural integrety of an IMAGE database,
not to mention lots of application problems.

</plug>

/jf