UniVerse RetrieVe how do I query a file for all of its columns' values?

Kind of a follow up to my self-answered question about finding the column names.

In UniVerse you can't query a file for all of its columns unless the @ phrase in your file's dictionary is set to all of the tables columns. If it isn't, how do you query a table for all of its columns' values?

So I can get the total column listing (column name & display name) using:

LIST DICT file NAME

This will return a listing of all columns and their display names. How do I then query the table for all of the columns it has?

LIST file

Will only query it for LIST file @id (@id is the only thing in @).

UPDATE I found a blog -- a living breathing person who id using a version of UniVerse older than mine!! where he complains about the same thing, but says there is no solution shy of updating @ with all of the columns, please god someone prove him (Dan Watts) wrong.

What if you have a 200 column table and you want SELECT * to return all 200 columns? Sorry, but you’ll have to enter all 200 column names in that "@" record. And if you add, delete or rename a column, you’ll have to remember to edit that "@" record. I feel your pain! This cumbersome approach dates back to UniVerse’s ODBC driver, and I suppose they can’t change it now without breaking a lot of applications. You can find the details described in inscrutable IBM-ese in the UniVerse ODBC Guide.

Solution

LIST ALL does not work on Universe.

One thing you can do is LIST.ITEM or LIST-ITEM depending on your flavor. This will list every attribute in the file that has data in it like this:

>LIST.ITEM ACTIVITY
LIST.ITEM ACTIVITY 06:52:10pm  14 Jan 2010  PAGE    1

1
001 LEXMARK MULTI PRINT
002 THD
003 PJ
007 10355
009 Y
010 CAGNEW
011 15349
012 52111
014 1ý2ý3ý4ý5
015 Deinstall Make/ModelýDeinstall LocationýSigned Off ByýData/Voice AvailableýR
elocated Location
016 1ý2ý3ý4ý5

2
001 OMN
002 OMN
003 PJ
004 OMN*8437
005 6
009 N
010 CAGNEW
011 15349
012 51958

>

If you're looking to do something with the data then write a program and do something like this:

OPEN "ACTIVITY" TO F.ACTIVITY ELSE STOP
SELECT F.ACTIVITY
LOOP
    READNEXT ID ELSE EXIT
    READ R.ACTIVITY FROM F.ACTIVITY, ID THEN
    ..................
    END
REPEAT