What does it do? This statement is a short form of the following Open SQL statement for accessing an individual database tabledbtab:
SELECT * FROM dbtab INTO { dbtab | *dbtab } ...
The explicit specification of a work area is missing in the short form. A table work area dbtab or *dbtab is used implicitly as the work area. The table work area must be declared using TABLES. If the name *dbtab is used instead of the name of the database table dbtab, dbtab is accessed, but the additional table work area is used.
The short form can only be used to read all columns of a database table if * is specified. When individual columns or aggregate functions are read, the work area must always be specified explicitly. The only exception here is when count( * ) is used to specify 'nothing', if no alternative column name and no GROUP BY have been specified.
