If Adaptive Server cannot perform an update in place, it tries to perform a cheap direct update—changing the row and rewriting it at the same offset on the page. Subsequent rows on the page are moved up or down so that the data remains contiguous on the page, but the row IDs remain the same. The pointers in the row offset table change to reflect the new locations.
A cheap direct update,must meet these requirements:
The length of the data in the row is changed, but the row still fits on the same data page, or the row length is not changed, but there is a trigger on the table or the table is replicated.
The column being updated cannot be the key, or part of the key, of a clustered index. Because Adaptive Server stores the rows of a clustered index in key order, a change to the key almost always means that the row location is changed.
One or more indexes must be unique or must allow duplicates.
The update statement satisfies the conditions listed in “Restrictions on update modes through joins”.
The affected columns are not used for referential integrity.
Cheap direct updates are almost as fast as in-place updates. They require the same amount of I/O, but slightly more processing. Two changes are made to the data page (the row and the offset table). Any changed index keys are updated by deleting old values and inserting new values. Cheap direct updates affect only indexes whose keys are changed by the update, since the page and row ID are not changed.
