Informix Error -4644: The HELP and ATTRIBUTE clauses each can be specified only once.

Reasons / Common Causes

-4644 fires when an INPUT or DISPLAY ARRAY statement has more than one HELP clause, more than one ATTRIBUTE clause, or both — per the official guidance, each clause is allowed only once within the statement's scope.

1. More than one HELP clause within one INPUT/DISPLAY ARRAY statement, per the official guidance.
2. More than one ATTRIBUTE clause within one INPUT/DISPLAY ARRAY statement, per the official guidance.

Solutions / Resolution

1. Search backward in the source module from this statement, per the official guidance, to locate all the statements of the duplicated clause type.
2. Reconcile them into one, per the official guidance.

Examples

Duplicate ATTRIBUTE clauses

INPUT BY NAME rec.*
  ATTRIBUTE(REVERSE)
  ...
  ATTRIBUTE(BOLD)
  -- -4644: ATTRIBUTE already given above
END INPUT

Corrected

INPUT BY NAME rec.*
  ATTRIBUTE(REVERSE, BOLD)
END INPUT

Diagnostic Checks

1. Search the statement's scope for more than one HELP or ATTRIBUTE clause, and combine them into a single clause of each kind.

Related Errors / Related Topics

• -4490 — "You cannot have multiple BEFORE clauses for the same field." A related duplicate-clause restriction, about per-field BEFORE clauses rather than statement-level HELP/ATTRIBUTE clauses.

An INPUT/DISPLAY ARRAY statement has more than one HELP or ATTRIBUTE clause — combine them into one of each.