Where did "OpenString" come from?

[Breck_Carter]

Lo these many years, based on nothing more than the prefix "Open", I have assumed that the OpenString function clause was based on some pre-existing feature in common use by some (unknown to me) portion of the computing community.

However, two possibilities now come to mind: first, that the "Open" in OpenString has nothing to do with any utopian philosophy but that it might as well have been called "UnloadString"; and second, that OpenString might be an invention of Watcom, er, iAnywhere Solutions, er, Sybase, er, SAP.

Is it possible?

[Former Member]

As far as I know that is true - OPENSTRING is Anil's invention, I haven't seen anything like it with any other product.

[Breck_Carter]

You folks need a Marketing Department, you really do!

Congratulations to Anil!

[johnsmirnios]

It was an excellent evolution of LOAD TABLE and, not surprisingly, they both share the same code. Many people needed the ability to massage the data coming from a LOAD TABLE so they would insert the data into a temporary table then massage the data in the temp table. That was wasteful and cumbersome. OpenString allowed it to happen in one step. The rewrite of the execution engine (many versions ago) made it much more feasible to do. LOAD TABLE is now very little other than an INSERT (with special properties and special logging) from OpenString.

[Breck_Carter]

...and y'all got recognized, right?