Rules of Precedence

When an IBM Informix product accesses an environment variable, normally the following rules of precedence apply:

1. Of highest precedence is the value that is defined in the environment (shell) by explicitly setting the value at the shell prompt.
2. The second highest precedence goes to the value that is defined in the private environment-configuration file in the home directory of the user (~/.informix).
3. The next highest precedence goes to the value that is defined in the common environment-configuration file ($INFORMIXDIR/etc/informix.rc).
4. The lowest precedence goes to the default value, if one exists.

For precedence information about GLS environment variables, see the IBM Informix: GLS User's Guide.