Informix dbaccess output - what's happening here?

I have written a perl CGI script which uses this construct to access an informix database: @output = `echo 'select * from table' | $dbaccess $database_name -`; This works fine. However: STDIO captures the query information returned, which I would expect. Nearly all of the additional Informix messages are captured with STDERR. And that's the problem - nearly all. ("Opening database. 1 row(s) returned. Database closed.") It seems that the first access I make to the database produces a message by dbaccess which I can't capture - and this makes its way through the web server to the browser! (Incidentally, I cannot capture the initial dbaccess output from the command line, either). Is there a way of suppressing Informix messages, or at least capture the spurious message? I have searched the web, FAQs and even (at the height of despiration) the supplied Informix documentation - but I have not found anything which might equate to a 'quiet' mode, or any other solution. I am using DB-Access Version 7.20.UC2, with Perl 5.004. I cannot use DBI, as there is not a compiler on the machine I am using (don't ask). Has anyone witnessed this behaviour before? Have I missed an important FAQ? Have I missed something blindingly obvious? Please help! Chris Carline chris@bluewave.com