A materialized view is a view whose result set has been precomputed from the base tables that it refers to and stored on disk, similar to a base table. Conceptually, a materialized view is both a view (it has a query specification stored in the catalog) and a table (it has persistent materialized rows). So, many operations that you perform on tables can be performed on materialized views as well. For example, you can build indexes on materialized views.

When you create a materialized view, its definition is stored in the database. The database server validates the definition to make sure it compiles properly. All column and table references are fully qualified by the database server to ensure that all users with access to the view see an identical definition. After successfully creating a materialized view, you populate it with data, also known as initializing the view.

Materialized views are listed in the Views folder in Sybase Central.

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