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The CREATE ALIAS statement has been enhanced to allow a member name of *LAST. This alias indicates the most recent member in a source file is to be used, resolved when an SQL statement referemces it.
You can read about it on the fact page here:https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/7148991
And in IBM Documentation here: https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/i/7.5?topic=statements-create-alias
Db2 for i development team
IBM Power Systems Development
IBM will use this request as input to planning but no commitment is made or implied. This request will be updated in the future if IBM implements it.
*LAST would be very nice indeed but what about *ALL ?
That would be like a SQL union that can read thru all members.
Thank you for your input. We will use that as we continue to evaluate this request. IBM will provide a response after evaluation is complete.
Thank you very much:
From a functional perspective, my preferred option is that the *LAST be evaluated at query time, so each time the alias is used, it will be answering with rows on the actual last member at query time.
If that is not possible (or impractical, or have a high impact on performance), I think is good enough to implement a version where *LAST be evaluated at CREATE ALIAS execution time, and, if users need to refresh the definition, they can execute a CREATE OR REPLACE ALIAS... which in any case is easier than creating Stored Procedures that check the last member of a file to create a new alias or creating stored procedures with an OVRDBF.
If the CREATE ALIAS statement were to support a value of *LAST, is the expectation that the alias is created with the current *LAST member, or should the value of *LAST get determined each time the alias is used in another SQL statement?
IBM has received the requirement and is evaluating it. IBM will provide a response after evaluation is complete.