A maintenance object specified on a DB process is referred to as DB process instruction (because it contains "instructions" governing the tables AND rows to be compared).
When you create an instruction (i.e., when you link a maintenance object to a DB process), you must define the type of instruction:
- A Primary instruction defines a maintenance object that is independent of any other maintenance object on the DB process. A DB process can contain an unlimited number of Primary instructions.
- A Child instruction defines a maintenance object that is related to a Primary maintenance object in some way. A Primary maintenance object can reference an unlimited number of Child maintenance objects.
An example will help explain the difference. The following DB process is used to compare business process scripts. This DB process has a single Primary instruction ( SCRIPT ) and many Child instructions (one for each foreign key referenced on the script maintenance object).
Notice that each Child is linked to a Primary instruction. This means that when the system compares a script, it will also compare the child objects referenced on each script.
If you did not indicate these were Child instructions (i.e., they were marked as Primary instructions), the system would compare every Display Icon , Algorithm , Navigation Option and Function in the system; even those not referenced on a script. In other words, Child instructions limit the child object that are compared to those related to its Primary maintenance object.
The following topics describe advanced DB process instruction concepts.