Preparing an unload statement

As Online 5 does not have a table-level backup facility, I am writing one in 4gl. Problem is, I get a syntax error when trying to prepare the unload statement for subsequent execution. The statement is: unload to "ae.unl" select * from ae;This works in isql but not in 4gl. Does anyone know if unload statements are invalid in 4gl? Thanks for your effort in advance.