Log for Data Consistency with SAPDBA (SAP Library - SAP Database Guide: Informix (BC-DB-INF-DBA))

Log for Data Consistency with SAPDBA

Definition

SAPDBA for Informix writes a log containing detailed information about processing for all actions available under Data Consistency. The log is called check_log and is held in directories under $INFORMIXDIR/sapreorg (UNIX) or %INFORMIXDIR%\sapreorg (NT) with the following names:

Check... actions:

CHECK_<object name>_<date/time stamp>

For example, a check of the table a014 on the 6th January 1998 at 14:24:03 would produce a directory called:

CHECK_a014_980106142403

You can use the log for these actions to see if the action has completed successfully.

‘ONCHECK’... actions:

For the ‘ONCHECK -cI’ for tables with ‘Blob’ Fields action, the following directory is created:

ONCHECK_cI_BLOB_<date/time stamp>

For example, CHECK_cI_BLOB_980106142403 .

For the ‘ONCHECK -cD’ for tables with ‘Blob’ Fields action, the following directory is created:

ONCHECK_cD_BLOB_<date/time stamp>

For example, CHECK_cD_BLOB_980106142403 .

For these actions, the log only indicates whether the Informix tool oncheck has been successfully called. You need to look at the file ending .out (in the same directory as check_log ) to find further details.

The date/time stamp is composed of the date (in reverse format) followed by the time.

Use

You can use the log to see what happened during a data consistency check in the event of failure.

Structure

The Log After Processing Successfully Completed

The log consists of the following sections (the examples below show a typical log where processing has completed successfully):

Header section at the start of the log

This contains a title and a date/time stamp, such as in the following example:

****************************************************
----------------------------------------------------
LOG FOR CONSISTENCY CHECK:
‘a014’
----------------------------------------------------
****************************************************
Start: 10. Jan. 98, 10:32

The name ‘a014 ’ is replaced by the relevant object name where appropriate. For example, ‘psapddic’ if checking this dbspace.

A central section containing a set of lines describing the processing for a given table. The example below shows a normal (that is, successful) consistency check:

----------------------------------------------------
Checking table ‘a014’:

Start: 25. Jan. 98. 10:32

Ready: 25. Jan. 98. 10:33

Status of CHECK: SUCCESS

----------------------------------------------------

This is repeated once for each table processed.

Note

For ‘ONCHECK’... actions, the following applies:

The text of the final line differs slightly. It appears as either Status of ‘ONCHECK -cD’ call: or Status of ‘ONCHECK -cI’ call.

You must check the output file (ending .out , in the same directory as the log file) to see how the oncheck call finished. You can only see from the log whether or not oncheck has been successfully called for each table.

Summary section at the end of the log

This contains a summary of the processing. The following example illustrates what this looks like when there have been no problems:

****************************************************
Summary for CONSISTENCY CHECK:
‘a014’
****************************************************

Tables with status FAILED: 0
Tables with status INTERRUPTED: 1
Tables with status WAITING: 20
Tables with status SUCCESS: 11

End of CONSISTENCY CHECK: 10. Jan. 98. 10:33
****************************************************

The Log After Processing Hit a Problem

The summary section of the log (appearing at the end of the log) contains important information, alerting you to the problem. For example:

****************************************************
Summary for CONSISTENCY CHECK of selected tables from:
‘blob’
****************************************************

Tables with status FAILED: 0

Tables with status INTERRUPTED: 1

Tables with status WAITING: 25

Tables with status SUCCESS: 6

End of CONSISTENCY CHECK: 10. Jan. 98. 10:33
****************************************************

The central section of the log contains further details of what has gone wrong. For example:

Status of ‘ONCHECK -cI’ call: INTERRUPTED

Location of error: Interrupted by user!

Recommendation: You can restart the request if you want!

In this example, we aborted the action prematurely. The next time we went into this same action, we would see a prompt from SAPDBA telling us that the action was incomplete and we could then restart it. For more information about restarting SAPDBA actions, see Restarting Uncompleted Consistency Requests with SAPDBA.

Integration

One further resource that you can use in finding the cause of problems – also useful if you need to call the Informix hotline – is the file ending .out . This file contains output details from the data consistency action. It is found in the same directory as check_log (see details at start of this section). For the ‘ONCHECK’ actions, this contains output from the underlying Informix tool oncheck .