Guru: Retrieving The Long And Short Object Name

August 14, 2023 Bob Cozzi

Many releases ago, IBM i received “Long SQL Names” for files and libraries. These new longer names (up to 128 characters) were well received by SQL enthusiasts, but largely ignored by the mainstream IBM i developer. As each version of IBM i emerged, more and more shops experienced one or more objects with a longer-than-10-character name.

Recently I created a file named BOAT_TRAFFIC. This name is clearly longer than 10 characters. I used SQL DDL (the CREATE or REPLACE TABLE statement) to create the file. Using SQL DDL is the only real way to create an object with a long …