Levels of inheritance for sbspace characteristics

The four levels of inheritance for sbspace characteristics are system, sbspace, column, and smart large objects. You can use the system default values for sbspace attributes, or override them for specific sbspaces, columns in a table, or smart large objects.

The following figure shows the storage-characteristics hierarchy for a smart large object.

Figure 1. Storage-characteristics hierarchy

This figure shows the storage-characteristics hierarchy. Database server storage characteristics, including system defaults, are at the highest level. Sbspace storage characters are at the second level. Column-level characteristics are at the third level and user-specified storage characteristics are at the last level. The following text contains more information about this figure.

The figure shows that you can override the system default in the following ways:

Use the -Df tags of the onspaces -c -S command to override the system default for a specific sbspace.
You can later change these sbspace attributes for the sbspace with the onspaces -ch option. For more information about valid ranges for the -Df tags, see the onspaces topics in the HCL Informix Administrator's Reference.
You override the system default for a specific column when you specify these attributes in the PUT clause of the CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE statements.
For more information about these SQL statements, see the IBM Informix Guide to SQL: Syntax.
The programmer can override the default values for sbspace attributes for specific smart large objects with functions that the DataBlade API and Informix® ESQL/C programming interface provide.