Logical parent symbolic pointers

A logical child can have a direct pointer (RBA) or a symbolic pointer (concatenated key) to the logical parent, or both, but partitioned databases only support symbolic logical parent pointers.

The symbolic pointer contains the key of the root segment key in the path to the logical parent, which can be used to determine which partition the logical parent is in. The HDAM randomizing routine or HIDAM primary index are used to determine the partition for the logical parent.

Symbolic Logical Parent Pointers

The advantage of using symbolic logical parent pointers is, you are not required to use prefix resolution after reorganizing. If the logical parent is the root, there may not be much difference between accessing the logical parent using the symbolic key versus the direct pointer, especially with HDAM.

Symbolic pointers are often defined even when direct pointers are used. The logical parent concatenated key is always returned in the I/O area of the application. The logical parent segment does not have to be read to build the logical parent concatenated key when symbolic logical parent pointers are defined. The advantages of symbolic logical parent pointers make the option attractive, even for non-partitioned databases.