SQL/MP Reference Manual

HP NonStop SQL/MP Reference Manual—523352-013

H-4

HELP TEXT Statement

HELP TEXT is a DDL statement that specifies help text for a column of a table or view.

column

is the name of a column with which to associate help text.

name

is the name of a table or view that includes the column.

text-line

is a line of help text in the form of a string of single-byte or multibyte characters

enclosed in single or double quotation marks. The string can be 0 to 132 bytes

long, but SQL issues a warning if it contains more than 77 bytes.

The set of strings you specify replaces any existing help text for the column. To

delete help text, specify a null string (“”).

Consideration—HELP TEXT

Only one DDL statement can operate on a given SQL object (or partition of an SQL

object) at a time. An error occurs if you attempt to execute a HELP TEXT statement

while another process is executing a DDL operation on the same object. The specific

error depends on the DDL operation involved and the phase of the operation at which

the conflict occurs. For information, see DDL (Data Definition Language) Statements

on page D-20.

Example—HELP TEXT

This example adds help text for the EMPNAME column of the EMP table:

HELP TEXT FOR COLUMN EMPNAME ON EMP IS

"NAME OF EMPLOYEE",

"THE FORMAT IS LAST-NAME, FIRST-NAME, MI";

HELP TEXT FOR COLUMN column ON { name }

IS text-line [, text-line ] ...