IBM Books

Glossary

B

backup pending
The state of a database or table space that prevents an operation from being performed until a backup is made of the database or table space.

base aggregate table
A target table type that contains data aggregated from a source table or a point-in-time table at intervals.

base table
A table created with the CREATE TABLE statement. Such a table has both its description and data physically stored in the database. Contrast with view.

basic conversation
An LU 6.2 conversation type between two transaction programs using the APPC basic conversation API. Contrast with mapped conversation.

basic predicate
A predicate that compares two values.

before-image
The content of a source table element prior to a refresh or update, as recorded in a change data table, or in a database log or journal. Contrast with after-image.

binary large object (BLOB)
A sequence of bytes, where the size of the sequence ranges from 0 bytes to 2 gigabytes. This string does not have an associated code page and character set. Image, audio, and video objects are stored in BLOBs.

bind
In SQL, the process by which the output from the SQL precompiler is converted to a usable structure called an access plan. During this process, access paths to the data are selected and some authorization checking is performed.

bindery object name
A 48-byte character string that contains the name of a bindery object on the NetWare** file server. The database manager configuration field, objectname, uniquely represents a DB2 server instance, and is stored as an object in the bindery on a NetWare file server.

bind file
A file produced by the precompiler when the bind command or API is used with the BINDFILE option. This file includes information on all SQL statements in the application program.

bit data
Data that is not associated with a coded character set and is therefore never converted.

BLOB
Binary large object.

block
A string of data elements recorded or transmitted as a unit.

blocking
An option that is specified when binding an application. It allows caching of multiple rows of information by the communications subsystem so that each FETCH statement does not require the transmission of one row for each request across the network.

broadcast join
A join in which all partitions of a table are sent to all nodes.

built-in function
An SQL function that is provided by DB2 and appears in the SYSIBM schema. Contrast with user-defined function.

byte reversal
A technique in which numeric data is stored with the least significant byte first.


[ Top of Page | Previous Page | Next Page | Table of Contents ]

[ DB2 List of Books | Search the DB2 Books ]