Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Data Management:
Database Administration

Validating structure description files

Prior to creating or updating a database with PROSTRCT, you can verify that your structure definition file (.st) is correct by adding the -validate parameter to your PROSTRCT CREATE, PROSTRCT ADD, or PROSTRCT ADDONLINE commands. When -validate is added to your PROSTRCT command, the structure definition file is examined for accurate syntax and valid content for the specified operation, and PROSTRCT determines if there is currently sufficient disk space to create the new extents. Any errors encountered in the structure definition file are reported. The add or create will not execute, even if there are no errors in the structure definition file.

Validation of a structure definition syntax includes the following checks:

Verify that every line in the file is either blank, a comment, or a proper extent definition.
Verify that every non-blank line begins with a comment character (*, :, #) or an extent type indicator (a, b, d, t.)
Verify that if the extent definition includes area information, it begins with an area name contained in double quotes (“ ”).
Verify that if an area number, records per block, or blocks per cluster field is defined for one extent, they are the same for all extents defined for that area.
Verify that if delimiters are included, they adhere to the following rules:
A colon (:) is followed by the area number.
A comma (,) is followed by the records per block value.
A semicolon (;) is followed by the blocks per cluster value.
Verify that if the cluster size is specified, it is one of the following values: 0, 1, 8, 64, 512.
Verify that a path specification is included for each extent, and that any path with a space in the name is enclosed in double quotes(“ ”), and preceded by an exclamation point (!).
Verify that size information for each extent is either blank or includes a type (f or v) and a size in 1K units.
Verify that size information of an extent, when specified, is a multiple of 16 times the block size and larger than 32; for Type II areas, also verify the size is large enough to contain at least one cluster. These sizes are automatically rounded up when the files are created, but validation issues a warning that the rounding will occur.

Validation also verifies that for each extent defined, there is sufficient disk space available to create the file.

For information on the syntax of the structure definition file, see the "Creating a structure description file" section.

Validation also checks that the following utility restrictions are adhered to:

For all utilities, the directories where extents are specified must exist.
For PROSTRCT CREATE, the database cannot already exist.
For PROSTRCT ADD and ADDONLINE, you cannot add transaction log extents when two-phase commit is enabled.
For PROSTRCT ADDONLINE, you cannot add new areas to a database when after-imaging is enabled.