I’ve been studying your book, SQL at Work. I was hoping you would answer a question for me. We have a historical transaction file sorted on a descending date field. I’d like to only select the latest record for a specific ID with the most current date. I don’t know the value of this date and I don’t want it to return any other records. Is this possible? Thanks!

–Mary

This kind of query can be done using a subquery or a join operation. Let’s create a sample table, load it with data, and try a few queries that

I’d like to suggest another method Jennifer can use for sorting arrays. Why not use a user index? I use user indexes so the user may sort subfiles umpteen different ways. Using a user index eliminates the need to be concerned with size (unless you have more than 4 GB of data). Maybe size would not be an issue in Jennifer’s daily run shipping application.

–Drew at BIC Graphic USA

Note: the code from this article is available for download

Drew sent me some illustrative code and a short write-up about the three API’s he uses–Create a User Index

When I went to IBM‘s Fix Central Web site to download some i5 PTFs, the site wouldn’t let me complete my order after I entered my contact and shipping information. Fix Central wouldn’t let me advance past the contact screen, and I couldn’t download the PTFs I wanted. Is there something wrong with my browser settings or do I need to adjust something else on my system?

–Bob

This same problem recently happened to me and I discovered that this issue occurred because I needed to update my i5/OS V5R3 partition’s service contact information. For service-related issues, IBM stores