Last month we introduced our new DBL Talks podcast series with the debut episode, “I/O Basics.” Today, we’re back with episode 2, “The Select Class,” which explores how this powerful feature brings SQL-like querying capabilities to ISAM data. 

DBL Talks is an educational video podcast series that explores key DBL concepts through focused, code-driven discussions. Each episode walks through real examples, explains the “why” behind the syntax, and shows how the pieces fit together. The goal is to make it easier for developers to understand how Synergy works under the hood and how to use it effectively in real-world applications.

Episode 2 walks through constructing Select operations step by step, starting with the From object and expanding into filtering, sorting, grouping, updating, deleting, and joining data across files.

We cover

• Using the From object to bind a data area to an ISAM file
• Building Where clauses for filtering records
• Creating and executing Select objects
• Iterating through results with FOREACH
• Updating records through Select
• Deleting matching records with Delete()
• Sorting results with OrderBy and NoCaseOrderBy
• Grouping records with GroupBy and Sparse
• Calculating counts, totals, and averages across groups
• Combining files with InnerJoin and LeftJoin

Throughout the episode, we show practical code examples and explain how these pieces work together in real Synergy DBL applications. You’ll find links to the example code and relevant documentation in the video description to help you follow along or explore topics further.

Watch DBL Talks Episode 2: The Select Class on YouTube.

Coming Next

Next up for DBL Talks will be an episode that explains how I/O hooks can be used to intercept and extend I/O operations.

Stay Connected

We encourage you to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you’ll be notified when new episodes and learning resources are published.

If there’s a topic you’d like us to cover in a future episode, let us know!