SQL from the command line

Hello all, What is the proper way to provide a SQL command line interface to a user without making them create a sql command file to issue a command? What I'd like is the ability to type something like this on the unix command line: <dbname> <SQL command here> The response would come back to stdout. This is the almost working script that I wrote: #! /bin/sh echo "$@" > temp.sql dbaccess -e <dbname> temp.sql The only problem with this is that it expands the * in "select * from <table> " to be the current directory listing, so I end up with : select <insert really big directory listing here> from <table> as my SQL command, which is not good. Is this the right approach? Is there already a utility that will provide SQL statements (not cmd files) from the command line? Any help is much appreciated! Andy Cordell andy@bnr.ca