Re: Really old version of Informix on Xenix

Ian Goddard <igoddard@netcomuk.co.uk> wrote in article <320C2075.5F27@netcomuk.co.uk>... > I certainly remember 3.3 (and earlier) but I don't recognise Informix > Reporter. I suspect you mean the Informix report writer ACE. The > language is much like the current ACE so if you can get the manual for > that you will have most of it. The syntax which replaces SELECT is READ. > > READ [INTO X] fieldlist {WHERE clause }{JOINING clause } END > > > fieldlist is a comma separate list of fields (columns in SQL parlance). > > The WHERE clause includes selection terms only and the JOINING clause > takes the terms which join files (tables in SQL). No sub-selects and, if > I remember correctly, no MATCHES. > > There's no ORDER BY in the READ but you can have a separate > > SORT BY fieldlist END > > statement. > > Hope this helps - but I won't part with may manual! > > Ian > Sorry, my sillyness, ACE Reporter is exactly what I'm talking about. I'm missing manuals for both. I figured out most of what you described (by trial and error I might add), but I'm having trouble with the "if" syntax. I've been unable to compile any code with an if statement before the "for each record section", which is preventing me from doing all kinds of neat things like generating different queries depending on input data. I was also uncertain as to the consequences of declaring a character variable of a length longer than the length of the corresponding database field. Also, I'm having problems getting Informix 3.3 to perform well. I keep getting messages suggesting it's not using any form of indexing or hash lookup (it keeps saying it's doing a sequential search). I want to try fiddling with the indexing, but I have yet to uncover a way to add indexes to the DB without dumping all the data (it'd be annoying to have to do that). I'm used to using more modern databases, and I keep finding myself overwhelmed by the limitations of older DB's. Thanks for the help so far, Christopher