Re: How difficult is it to export data in Informix?

jimgundlach@direcway.com wrote: > We are working with a company that provides an Informix database system > with web front ends to clients who have limited skills. The clients > run their own databases using these web base front ends. We need a > copy of one of the client's database excluding two fields. The > database apparently has three "pages". The first has about ten fields > is an applicant page which indicates sending, completion, and > acceptance of applicants. The second has about twenty fields and is a > person information page which includes applicant information and > indication of acceptance or not. The third has five fields and is an > activities page which reports up to about twenty activities with each > accepted applicant. The two fields to be deleted are on the person > information fields. The local client says they do not know how to > produce the data and have contacted the company that provides the web > based front end and asked them to produce another web based tool to > dump the desired data. In addition to wanting to know how much writing > such a tool should cost, I'm interested in knowing if the local system > admin. should be able to produce the files, delimited text is fine, > without having to pay for writing a custom tool. This really seems > like a simple task to me. I've worked with a couple of other database > programs and it would be quite simple to do this in them. And, I just > don't see how informix could be as sucessful as it is if exporting > selected data is so difficult. As David said, the first key thing is to identify the DBMS and version of the DBMS in use (SE, OnLine, IDS, XPS, 5.2x, 7.2x, 7.3x, 8.xx, 9.xx, 10.00, ...). If you need help identifying this, let the group know. The next is to identify whether any useful tools (the obvious ones in this case are DB-Access and DB-Export) are on the machine. If so, you can certainly do the jobs yourself. If not, you may need to download CSDK and a suitable toolkit, install them in a separate directory from the main DBMS installation, and then use them to gain the information. This assumes there are no contractual reason why this is not permitted. Yes, given the proper tools, the task is close to trivial. If the proper tools are not available, you have to work a bit harder. -- Jonathan Leffler #include <disclaimer.h> Email: jleffler@earthlink.net, jleffler@us.ibm.com Guardian of DBD::Informix v2005.02 -- http://dbi.perl.org/

Jonathan, Thanks, I don't get to touch their database but it does give me the information I need to talk with their system administratorl. Jim Gundlach