Re: Use of 'here' documents with isql

Alan Popiel writes: |> Graeme Sargent writes: |> -> |> ->I'm fairly sure it was documented at 1.00.00 thru 2.10.03 but I no |> ->longer have access to documentation that old. I think it may well have |> ->been in the blue version of the 4.00 manual also, but I had not noticed |> ->that it had gone AWOL from the new-style doc. I also can't find any |> ->reference to the -d -f -r -q -t -u arguments. I consider this to be a |> ->documentation bug, otherwise they should have documented that these |> ->features were no longer supported. Command line args to the utilities was documented in Appendix M of the 2.10 SQL Reference manual. In 4.0, it was moved to appendix I of the SQL User Guide. In 5.0, it is in the DB-Access User Manual. All document command line options to invoke the assorted menu options of isql/dbaccess. The use of the - as the second argument (e.g. dbaccess stores5 -) has never been documented and, to the best of my knowledge, is not supported. Since here documents use this unsupported option, they would also be an unsupported use of the product, demo programs notwithstanding. |> ->You could try pointing out that it IS effectively documented by its |> ->usage in the demo script $INFORMIXDIR/bin/isqldemo! I'm not sure that this would be considered "effective" documentation, though this is not my arena. |> I believe that the supported syntax is: |> |> isql [dbname] [filename] |> |> where filename refers to filename.sql; i.e., don't specify the '.sql' |> extension in the 'isql' command. This may be less convenient than 'here' |> documents, since one cannot substitute $1 type arguments as easily. |> |> Unfortunately, I cannot find this usage described in the documents, either! |> I concur with Graeme, in that the newer documentation is deficient. There |> is no reference that I can find to command line flags/arguments. I don't |> know whether the usage of such arguments is being phased out, or what. |> However, it IS difficult to document the REMOVAL of something: That is |> normally documented in the release notes, and who keeps those bloody awful |> things?!? See my above comments on where to find the documentation for dbaccess and isql. Dave