[Tutor] positional output

[Cranky Frankie]

Thank you for your help on this. Now for "the rest of the story."

I'm trying to build a script to parse IBM AIX DB2 DDL to line up the
data types (it drives me crazy when the column data types are not
lined up). For example, typical create table DDL might be hundreds of
lines long but will look like this:

-- 
-- table create DDL
--
CREATE TABLE FRANK.TEST (
COLUMN1     DECIMAL(8),
COLUMN2           CHAR(20),
COLUMN3                    TIMESTAMP,
COLUMN4     INTEGER,
COLUMN5          DATE NOT NULL WITH DEFAULT,
-- repeat for hundreds of columns
);
COMMENT ON TABLE FRANK.TEST IS 'TEST TABLE';

This is just a small sample, there are many other possible lines, but
I'm only concerned about the column lines like COLUMN1 through COLUMN5
above.

I have a script on Windows that reads in the DDL file and writes out
each line to a new file. What I'm doing is using the split() function
to test for the presence of any DB2 standard data type, like CHAR,
INTEGER, SMALINT, etc. If I find one I want to use positional output
to make each like look like:

COLUMN1                        DECIMAL(8),
COLUMN2                        CHAR(20),
COLUMN3                        TIMESTAMP,
COLUMN4                         INTEGER,
COLUMN5                         DATE NOT NULL WITH DEFAULT,

where all the COLUMNs would be in column 1 of the output file, the
data types would be in column 40, and the comma would be next.

The problem is handling lines that have NOT NULL WITH DEFAULT at the
end. The thing is there could be other valid DDL in that position, and
there may or may not be a comma after the data type. What I want to do
is just take anything after the datatype, which would be element(1) in
the split() output, and just write it out. I thought I could use
rsplit() to do this, but you can't put the output of split() in
rsplit() - I tried.

I need to do something like, after verifying that element(1) is a
valid DB2 datatype, just take everything else on the line after it,
which may be a single comma, or NOT NULL WITH DEFAULT, or something
else, and place it on the output line to be written out.

So, to reiterate: I'm trying to build a script to line up the data
types in a create table DDL file. Splitting each line into individual
space separated elements, then checking for a valid data type, the
rebuilding the line positionally seems to be the way to go. If there's
an easyier way to do it I'm all ears.

I don't have my script available at the moment but I could send it if
it would be helpful.



-- 
Frank L. "Cranky Frankie" Palmeri, Guilderland, NY, USA
             Risible Riding Raconteur & Writer
Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things.