Explain an unsupported method to shrink a database

Question

Explain an unsupported method to shrink a database.

Answer 1

To shrink a database an unsupported method describe below:
This process is quite trivial in some cases, like removing a recently added fragment or trimming a database which has a log fragment like its final allocation, although, can also be much more difficult or time consuming than the bcp and script method.

Common Outline

The common outline of how to do this is:
1. Make a backup of the present database
2. Migrate data by sysusages fragments along with high lstart values to fragments along with low lstart values.
3. Then edit sysusages to eliminate high lstart fragments which no longer have data allocations.
4. Reboot the ASE.