DB2 catalog
A set of DB2 tables that describe every object in the DB2 system, such as tables, columns, indexes and packages.
Also written SYSIBM, SYSIBM.SYSTABLES, SYSIBM.SYSCOLUMNS, DB2 directory, catalog tables
The DB2 catalog is DB2's description of itself. It is a set of tables, with names starting SYSIBM, that record every object in the system. When you create a table, DB2 adds rows to the catalog that describe it.
You can query the catalog with ordinary SQL. SYSIBM.SYSTABLES lists tables, SYSIBM.SYSCOLUMNS lists each table's columns with their types and lengths, SYSIBM.SYSINDEXES lists indexes, and SYSIBM.SYSPACKAGE lists bound packages. A quick query in SPUFI can answer questions like "which tables have a column called ACCT_NO?" or "when was this package last bound?"
DB2 also has a directory, which holds internal information it needs to run, in a form that is not meant to be queried directly.
The catalog is not the same as the z/OS catalog, which records datasets. They have similar names because they do a similar job, each for its own system. Your access to the DB2 catalog may be limited at some sites, because it shows the structure of every application.
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- DB2 for z/OSIBM's relational database on the mainframe, where a great deal of the world's banking and insurance data is stored.
- SQLThe language used to query and change relational data. The same SQL used everywhere else, running against mainframe tables.
- BINDPreparing a program's SQL for execution, working out how each statement will access the data and storing the result.
- Table spaceThe storage structure in DB2 for z/OS that holds the data of one or more tables, kept in VSAM datasets that DB2 manages.
- SPUFIAn ISPF tool for running SQL against DB2 for z/OS: you write the SQL in a dataset, run it, and read the results in another dataset.