Types of Environment Variables

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Types of Environment Variables

Two types of environment variables are discussed in this chapter:

Informix-specific environment variables
Set Informix environment variables when you want to work with IBM Informix products. Each IBM Informix product manual specifies the environment variables that you must set to use that product.
Operating-system-specific environment variables
IBM Informix products rely on the correct setting of certain standard operating system environment variables. For example, you must always set the PATH environment variable.

In a UNIX environment, you might also need to set the TERMCAP or TERMINFO environment variable to use some products effectively.

The GLS environment variables that support nondefault locales are described in the IBM Informix: GLS User's Guide. The GLS variables are included in the list of environment variables in Table 12 and in the topic index in Table 15, but are not discussed in this manual.

The database server uses the environment variables that were in effect at the time when the database server was initialized.

The onstat - g env command lists the active environment settings.

Tip:

Additional environment variables that are specific to your client application or SQL API might be discussed in the manual for that product.

Important:

Do not set any environment variable in the home directory of user informix (nor in the file .informix in that directory) while initializing the database and creating the sysmaster database.