What is Logical Files?

In database systems, especially within IBM i (formerly AS/400) environments, logical files provide a way to access data from one or more physical files in a different order or format than how it's physically stored. A logical file doesn't contain actual data; instead, it contains a description of how the data should be presented, including record selection criteria (selecting specific records based on certain values), key fields (defining the order in which records are retrieved), and field mappings (renaming or reformatting fields). This allows different applications to view the same data in different ways without requiring separate physical copies of the data. It's used to create different views of the same underlying data.