Nicknames (DB2)

A nickname is an identifier that an application uses to reference a data source object, such as a table or view. In a federated system, you use can nicknames to access data source objects and improve the performance of queries on remote data sources. Nicknames are supported for DB2 for Common Server v9.7 and higher.

Creating a Nickname

You can create a nickname in any of the following ways:

Nickname Properties

You can modify an object's properties from its property sheet. To open a nickname property sheet, double-click its Browser entry in the Nicknames folder.

The following extended attributes are available on the General tab:

Property Description

Server

Specifies the server that contains the table the nickname is refering to (see Servers (DB2)). Use the tools to the right of the list to create, browse for, or view the properties of the currently selected object.

Scripting name: Server

Remote schema

Specifies the schema to which the table or view belongs. If left empty, the server authorization name is used.

Scripting name: RemoteSchema

Remote table

Specifies the remote table name.

Scripting name: RemoteTable

Relational definition

Selecting Yes displays the Relational Definition tab, which contains a field to allow you to specify an appropriate definition in SQL.

Scripting name: RemoteTable

The following extended attributes are available on the Options tab:

Property Description
Code page

Specifies the code page of the file at the data source. This option is valid only for federated databases that use Unicode.

Scripting name: CODEPAGE

Column delimiter

Specifies a single character to use as the delimiter that separates columns in the table-structured file.

Scripting name: COLUMN_DELIMITER

Data source

Specifies the name of the script to invoke.

Scripting name: DATASOURCE

File path

Specifies the fully qualified directory path and file name of the Excel spreadsheet to access.

Scripting name: FILE_PATH

Key column

Specifies the name of the column on which the file is sorted.

Scripting name: KEY_COLUMN

Namespaces

Specifies the namespaces that are associated with the namespace prefixes that are used in the XPATH and TEMPLATE options for each column.

Scripting name: NAMESPACES

No empty string

Specifies whether the remote data source server can contain empty strings.

Scripting name: NO_EMPTY_STRING

Numeric string

Specifies how to treat numeric strings. When set to Y for a column, the query optimizer recognizes that the column contains no blanks that could interfere with the sorting of the data in the column.

Scripting name: NUMERIC_STRING

Range

Specifies the range of Excel cells to use.

Scripting name: RANGE

Remote object

Specifies the name of the BioRS databank that is associated with the nickname. This name determines the schema and the BioRS databank for the nickname.

Scripting name: REMOTE_OBJECT

SOAP action

Specifies the URI SOAPACTION attribute from the Web Services Description Language (WSDL) format.

Scripting name: SOAPACTION

Sorted

Specifies whether the file at the data source is or is not sorted in ascending order.

Scripting name: SORTED

Streaming

Specifies whether the source document should be separated into logical fragments for processing.

Scripting name: STREAMING

Template

Specifies the nickname template fragment to use to construct a SOAP request.

Scripting name: TEMPLATE

Timeout

Specifies the maximum time, in minutes, to wait for a response from the data source server.

Scripting name: TIMEOUT

Validate

Specifies whether the source document is validated to ensure that it conforms to an XML schema or document type definition (DTD) before data is extracted from it.

Scripting name: VALIDATE

Validate data file

For sorted files, this option specifies whether the wrapper verifies that the key column is sorted in ascending order and checks for null keys.

Scripting name: VALIDATE_DATA_FILE

XPath

Specifies the XPath expression that identifies the XML elements that represent individual tuples.

Scripting name: XPATH

XML root

Specifies the XML root element to add to the values of an XML column that references an XML sequence.

Scripting name: XML_ROOT

Additional options

Can be used to specify any additional options.

Scripting name: OtherOptions