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Raymond Bowers wrote recently.... > I am using Informix SE 5.0 on SCO Unix, Open Desktop 2.0 >I am trying to allow users to run dbaccess and send the results to a file >which >can then be loaded into a spread sheet with Wingz. I have two problems so >far. > > First, spaces are used to separate the columns, but Wingz needs TABs to >separate columns. In ORACLE (blah!), I could set what I wanted the column >deilmiters to be, and simply change them to TABs. Can I do this with >dbaccess? [stuff deleted] > The best solution I can find so far involves letting the user develop the >query as he wants, then adding 'unload to "filename"' above the query when >done. > This eliminates the problem of the columns coming out vertically arranged >instead of across horizontally . . . But unload has undocumented restrictions >and will not save in a TAB delineated format. > [stuff deleted] > Anyways, my simple solution for now is to let the user unload the data from >dbaccess, then from Wingz open a sheet, select a file and my program will shell >out to unix, run a simple awk script to convert all |'s to TAB's and then use >APPEND to pull the converted file in . . . > > That's my solution so far . . . Anybody else have any ideas? > 1. First of all, you don't really need an awk script. The Unix function tr will convert any character to any other within a file. 2. A slightly more elegant solution is to change the delimiter at the Unix command line by typing DBDELIMITER=<required character> export DBDELIMITER in your case <required character>= \\TAB Of course, you must run this before you start the database, and it will affect ALL databases run by that process, but this may not necessarily be a problem. The best solution is probably to include these statements in the .profile of the affected users. I've tested this solution in Informix-SQL 2.10 running under Unix System 5 and it works OK. Of course, like the VW beetle, it may have been "improved" out of existence in the later products.... ** My opinions are my own ..I think. They're certainly not my employers. Barry Toomey AT&T Network Systems Ireland bt@irl3b2c.att.com UUNET: att!irl3b2c!bt --- End Included Message ------------------------------------------------------