When to use HIDAM and PHIDAM

HIDAM and PHIDAM databases are typically used when you need both random and sequential access to database records and random access to paths of segment in a database record.

Access to root segments (and therefore database records) is not as fast as with HDAM (or PHDAM), because the HIDAM (or PHIDAM) index database has to be searched for a root segment's address. However, because the index keeps the address of root segments stored in key sequence, database records can be processed sequentially.