The record-format specifications allow you to describe the fields in a record and the location of the fields in a record. The fields are located in the record in the order specified in the DDS. The field description generally includes the field name, the field type, and the field length (including the number of decimal positions in a numeric field). Instead of specifying the field attributes in the record format for a physical or logical file, you can define them in a field-reference file.
In addition, the DDS keywords can be used to:
For a complete list of the DDS keywords that are valid for a database file, refer to the DB2 Universal Database for iSeries section of the Database and File Systems category in the i5/OS Information Center at this Web site - http://www.ibm.com/systems/i/infocenter/.
Figure 166 shows an example of the DDS for a database file, and Figure 167 for a field-reference file that defines the attributes for the fields used in the database file. See the above Web site for more information on field-reference files.