I should know this - sql output formatting

In Unix shell (HP-UX 11i and IDS V9.31HC5) using 'output to pipe "cat" without headings'; if the result set is wider than a terminal screen's worth of characters, the output is split onto a newline, making the results unusable. e.g. dbaccess my_database <<EOF output to pipe "cat" without headings select a_char_100 from mytable EOF gives me two lines, for example: a very long string of many many characters indeed that will wrap past the end of a display screen Note that the second part ("end of a display screen" is offset from the left - how can I make dbaccess output this as a single string on one line reading "a very long string of many many characters indeed that will wrap past the end of a display screen"? NB no we don't have access to Aubit etc.

SGBoyUK wrote: > In Unix shell (HP-UX 11i and IDS V9.31HC5) using 'output to pipe "cat" > without headings'; if the result set is wider than a terminal screen's > worth of characters, the output is split onto a newline, making the > results unusable. > > e.g. > dbaccess my_database <<EOF > output to pipe "cat" without headings select a_char_100 from mytable > EOF > > gives me two lines, for example: > > a very long string of many many characters indeed that will wrap past > the > end of a display > screen > > Note that the second part ("end of a display screen" is offset from > the left - how can I make dbaccess output this as a single string on > one line reading > "a very long string of many many characters indeed that will wrap past > the end of a display screen"? > > NB no we don't have access to Aubit etc. Pity you don't, because SQSL would allow you to specify exactly how to split (or not split) long text ;-) This said, I can see there at least two dbaccess defects 1) in spite of the without heading, dbaccess is leaving the space for the heading in the second and subsequent lines 2) in spite of not running in form mode (and therefore disregarding termcap or terminfo entries) dbaccess is still putting an arbitrary 80 columns margin: it should at the very least respond to the COLUMN env var My only suggestion is to pipe to awk or perl, and join back the two lines -- Ciao, Marco ______________________________________________________________________________ Marco Greco /UK /IBM Standard disclaimers apply! Structured Query Scripting Language http://www.4glworks.com/sqsl.htm 4glworks http://www.4glworks.com Informix on Linux http://www.4glworks.com/ifmxlinux.htm