Followers of my Guru tips know that I’m an RSE (a.k.a. RDi) fan. These days I would be lost trying to write or maintain RPG code without things like RSE’s Outline, Error feedback, editor filtering, and Undo. But you know how it is: the more you use a toolset and come to depend on all the great things it can do you for you, the more you also begin to come up with thoughts like but I sure wish it could do X. . ..

One of the great things about RDi (and its predecessors, RDP and WDSC) is

In Three Powerful SQL Words, I showed how to enhance summary queries with aggregate values over subsets of grouping columns. Today I continue that discussion by showing the two syntaxes of rollup and illustrating the difference between them.

First, assume a table of accounting transactions.

select department, account, amount
  from xacts2
 order by 1, 2
 
DEPARTMENT  ACCOUNT     AMOUNT
     1          10      200.00
     1          10      250.00
     1          30      300.00
     2          10      125.00
     2          20      175.00
     2          20      225.00

Here’s a typical summary query using the familiar GROUP BY clause.

select department, account, sum(amount) as tamt
  from xacts2                                  
 group by department, account                  
 

It seems that many people don’t understand the difference between security policies and procedures. When I ask to see a customer’s security policy, if I get anything, it is usually documentation about how system security values should be set. Once in a while it contains a description about how certain tasks will be accomplished. For example, updating applications on the production system. While this kind of documentation is useful, it is not a security policy.

In short, security policy identifies acceptable and/or unacceptable uses of various business assets. Importantly, security policy shouldn’t include descriptions of how to enforce, prevent, or