Re: Re**2: piping scripts into isql: bang escapes

Path: emory!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!anasaz!qip!briand From: briand@anasaz (Brian Douglass) Newsgroups: comp.databases.informix Message-ID: <1992Jan15.203054.12120@anasaz> Date: 15 Jan 92 20:30:54 GMT References: <1992Jan13.193649.15202@informix.com> <1992Jan14.163521.29230@informix.com> Organization: Anasazi, Inc. Phoenix, Az In article <1992Jan14.163521.29230@informix.com> cortesi@informix.com writes: >> first off, jjamison@bellahs.UUCP (John Jamison) asked, > >That was news to us here in tech pubs [of course it came AFTER the >5.0 manuals went to press :-( ] but even more interesting news came >today. When operating in piped mode this way, ISQL will accept an >initial "!" as meaning escape to shell. Here is how it looks >using 4.1 software on a Sun: This is really quite funny, because this feature has been around since version 1.10 of Informix-SQL. Hell, I've probably still got scripts around from circa 1983 to prove it. Why does it take 8 years to get a feature documented? On other undocumented, or at least hard to find features, is placing a semicolon (;) at the end of a Print line in either Ace or 4GL commands the Print statement NOT to issue a CR/LF. The next print line resumes printing 1 character to the right of the last line. This feature is documented (in some manual), I've been able to find it about 3 times in 8 years (once in V1.10, V2.1, and in V4.0), but it seems very few others have heard of it. Might it be possible to better document this in the future? Hey, how about a FAQ on undocumented or poorly documented features? Does this exists yet, or should I be checking a FAQ list someplace? -- Brian Douglass briand%anasaz.UUCP@asuvax.eas.asu.edu 602-870-3330 X657