Organizing Data Inside the ssdef Table

The ssdef table can be arranged in one of two basic manners. The first arrangement is by individual column names. In this arrangement, only one column name at a time is stored. In order to determine what the header line looks like, the line must be reconstructed, a column name at a time. This is often referred to as the “individual column” method.

The second way the ssdef table can be structured is by the capture of the entire line, where all of the column names are captured at once. This is referred to as the “composite column” method.