What is the srt file used for ?
Queries that have the possibility to be navigated backwards and repositioned to specific records, maintain a result list which is stored sorted in the srt file. The size of the result list is directly related to the number of records that match the query criteria.
pre-OpenEdge 10.1C, the srt file is used to store result sets for queries and r-code overflow when memory limits are reached. In OpenEdge 10.1C and later, the r-code swap file (rcd*) is used to dynamically swap r-code segments in and out of the execution buffer instead of the srt* file.
Specific case examples that cause srt files to grow:
1. Local sorting.
If the table does not have an index which matches the query. The results of the query predicate are sent to the client and the srt file is used to store and sort these results.
2. Result sets from Dynamic or SCROLLING queries.
To say Dynamic or SCROLLING is actually a bit redundant because Dynamic queries "are" SCROLLING queries by default and it's that attribute of a Dynamic query that causes the result set to be stored in the srt file.
Queries that use the SCROLLING option fetch a set of records and deliver them to the client all at once as opposed to non-SCROLLING queries which fetch a single record at a time. Given that a buffer can only reference a single record at any given time, the srt file is used to store the remaining records thereby allowing the query to navigate within that set of records using GET- (FIRST, NEXT, PREV, LAST) without having to request this information again from the database server.Note: Dynamic query default behavior of using the SCROLLING option can be changed with the FORWARD-ONLY attribute. Static queries can be changed at the session level, by using the -noautorelist startup parameter. This however will not stop the srt file being used for sorting, if the PRESELECT option is used to open the query or if there's no index to resolve the query.
3. FOR EACH statements and queries that use the PRESELECT option.
4. r-code that overflows memory (in releases earlier than OpenEdge 10.1C)
To debug srt file problems associated with the application
Collect Statistics With Cross-reference (-yx) to find how often a procedure swapped to and from the temporary file (SRT file). For further information refer to Article:
