UNLOAD to a pipe instead of to a file

Since my previous thread ended to quickly and painlessly, I decided to try my luck again. Gain without the pain. :-) I have this memory from ages ago that I was able to to an UNLOAD command in dbaccess but instead of to a file, I unloaded to a pipeline to another program. The syntax was something like: unload to pipe "program"select <columns> from <table>.. The above syntax does not work, of course. I definitely have unloaded to a named FIFO but the syntax was the same as for a file so dbaccess was none the wiser. Bat the unnamed pipe? Not so much. So, is my memory playing Freudian tricks on me? (Hey, it's supposed to be my friend!) I have an easy enough workaround to use in a script: unload to a temp file in dbaccess, and cat the output in the shell, then delete the temp file. But I was hoping for a more direct method to run dbaccess and capture that output straight into a shell variable. If not possible (and my memory has extra feathers) I have that workaround. If possible, please post the syntax here. Thanks! ------------------------------ Jacob Salomon ------------------------------

Unload to "'my.pipe" And make my.pipe a fileCheers Paul Paul Watson Oninit LLC +1-913-387-7529 www.oninit.com Oninit® is a registered trademark of Oninit LLC

I used sth like this when machine with database did not have enough space in file systems ############## #dbexport pipe + network export TAPEDEV=/home/informix/tmp/tapedev mkfifo $TAPEDEV cat $TAPEDEV | ssh root@serverB "gzip -c | cat > /BIG_FS/exports/mydb_export.gz" & dbexport mydb -ss -t $TAPEDEV -b 4096 -s 0 -f mydb_schema.sql #dbimport ssh root@serverB "gzip -cd /BIG_FS/exports/mydb_export.gz" | cat > $TAPEDEV dbimport mydb -t $TAPEDEV -b 4096 -s 0 -f mydb_schema.sql HTH Hrvoje ------------------------------ Hrvoje Zokovic Technical Support Director ALFATEC Group Zagreb ------------------------------

Hi Jacob, https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/informix-servers/12.10.0?topic=statements-output-statement OUTPUT TO PIPE program WITHOUT HEADINGS !! Regards, David. ------------------------------ David Williams Senior Database Platform Engineer Flutter London ------------------------------

Dave! You zapped it just perfect! I was looking for an option under "unload". Like looking for my pants in the refrigerator. (Not that old yet..;-) If you don't know the name of a feature, ain't no MAN or manual page gonna find it for you! (I get by with a little help from my friends...) I did need to adjust the output a trifle. This relates to my previous question about when the server started up or stats was zeroed. In a shell script: dbaccess sysmaster - 2>/dev/null <<EOQ | awk 'NF>0 {print}' output to pipe "cat" without headings select dbinfo('UTC_TO_DATETIME', sh_boottime), dbinfo('UTC_TO_DATETIME', sh_pfclrtime) from sysshmvals; EOQ That awk was needed in the pipeline because dbaccess generate extra empty lines to stdout. And, of course, I didn't want the "database selected" and "1 rows retrieved" messages that dbaccess sends to stderr so I sent those to /dv/null. Thanks for recognizing where I gone astray. ------------------------------ Jacob Salomon ------------------------------