PLEASE help...SQL problem URGENT

I'm trying to load many files into a database using the "LOAD FROM filea INSERT INTO tableb" command. However, Informix V4 4GL doesn't allow you touse a variable in place of either filea or tableb. How can I do this? I thought about having a long string containing this information and somehow directly sending it to the SQL engine. Please help... Thank you, Graeme

Do you use DOS, Windows or UNIX/AIX ...

On Thu, 21 Oct 1999 21:42:24 +0100, "Graeme Barnett" <gbarnett@37gateshead.freeserve.co.uk> wrote: >I'm trying to load many files into a database using the "LOAD FROM filea >INSERT INTO tableb" command. However, Informix V4 4GL doesn't allow you to>use a variable in place of either filea or tableb. How can I do this? >I thought about having a long string containing this information and somehow >directly sending it to the SQL engine. Please help... One solution (posix or ksh): dbaccess dbname 2>&1 |& pid=$! exec 3>&p exec 4<&p for file in file1 file2 file3 ... do print "load from $file insert into tableb;" >&3 done exec 3>&- cat <&4 exec 4<&- wait $pid || print Got an error Hope that helps, Douglas Wilson

The LOAD verb is NOT an SQL command and the engine does NOT understand it so you cannot build a string containing the LOAD command and prepare it and execute it. HOWEVER, the filename and the ENTIRE INSERT statement which is the target of the LOAD command CAN be string variables! So: ::::::: DEFINE insert_str CHAR(1024), loadfile CHAR(1024), tablename(18) LET tablename = arg_val(2) LET loadfile = arg_val(1) LET insert_str = "INSERT INTO ", tablename LOAD FROM loadfile insert_str :::::: Art S. Kagel Graeme Barnett wrote: > > I'm trying to load many files into a database using the "LOAD FROM filea > INSERT INTO tableb" command. However, Informix V4 4GL doesn't allow you to> use a variable in place of either filea or tableb. How can I do this? > I thought about having a long string containing this information and somehow > directly sending it to the SQL engine. Please help... > > Thank you, > > Graeme

Graeme Barnett wrote: > > I'm trying to load many files into a database using the "LOAD FROM filea > INSERT INTO tableb" command. However, Informix V4 4GL doesn't allow you to> use a variable in place of either filea or tableb. How can I do this? > I thought about having a long string containing this information and somehow > directly sending it to the SQL engine. Please help... > > Thank you, > > Graeme You may try something like that [...] FUNCTION LoadFileToTable(filename, tablename) DEFINE filename char(255), tablename char(18), QStr char(120) let Qstr = "select * from ",tablename," where rowid = -1 into temp tmp_load_table" prepare stCreateTable from QStr execute stCreateTable {4GL V4 allow you to use a variable in place of filename !!!!} load from filename insert into tmp_load_tablelet QStr = "insert into ",tablename," select * from tmp_load_table" prepare stInsertInto execute stInsertInto drop table tmp_load_table END FUNCTION