Use Field Names for Column Headings

May 11, 2005 Ted Holt

SQL/400 SELECT statements use the column headings that are stored as part of the file description when displaying or printing data. Sometimes I prefer to see the field names themselves used as column headings. I have found one method to make SQL use field names as column headings, but I wonder if you know of a better one.

–Danny

Danny is referring to files that are created with DDS, although column headings may also be defined with SQL’s LABEL ON command. Here’s an example of a few fields with defined column headings.

A                                      UNIQUE
A          R CUSTREC
A            COMPANY        3P 0B      TEXT('Company')
A                                      DFT(1)
A                                      COLHDG(' ' ' ' 'Company')
A                                      EDTCDE(1)
A            CUSTNBR        5P 0B      TEXT('Customer account number')
A                                      COLHDG('Customer' ' account' +
A                                      '  number')
A                                      EDTCDE(4)
A            CUSTNAME      20   B      TEXT('Customer name')
A                                      COLHDG(' ' 'Customer' 'name')
A                                      ALWNULL

Here’s a simple select against those fields.

SELECT COMPANY, CUSTNBR, CUSTNAME
      FROM SOMEFILE

Selecting these fields shows output like the following:

          Customer
           account  Customer
 Company    number  name
     1      20304   BIL'S GROCERY
     1      30405   TOM'S PHARMACY

Danny’s method is to rename each field with its own name.

SELECT COMPANY AS COMPANY, CUSTNBR AS CUSTNBR,
      CUSTNAME AS CUSTNAME
      FROM SOMEFILE

Renaming in this manner produces the following output.

COMPANY  CUSTNBR  CUSTNAME
    1     20304   BIL'S GROCERY
    1     30405   TOM'S PHARMACY

I don’t know of any setting that tells SQL to use field names for column headings, so I do not have a better method than the one Danny is using.

SQL/400 also picks up other formatting options from the file description. I have found it helpful to define edit codes and edit words in DDS, so that queried data is formatted nicely. For example, over an eight-digit, numeric field that contains a date in YYYYMMDD format, the following edit word is helpful.

EDTWRD('    /  /  ')

There are four blanks before the first slash for the year, two blanks between the slashes for the month, and two blanks after the second slash for the day. The value 20051231 displays as 2005/12/31.

–Ted