DELIMIDENT

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DELIMIDENT

The DELIMIDENT environment variable specifies that strings enclosed between double quotation ( " ) marks are delimited database identifiers.

>>-setenv--DELIMIDENT------------------------------------------><

No value is required; DELIMIDENT takes effect if it exists, and it remains in effect while it is on the list of environment variables.

Delimited identifiers can include white space (such as the phrase "Vitamin E") or can be identical to SQL keywords, (such as "TABLE" or "USAGE"). You can also use them to declare database identifiers that contain characters outside the default character set for SQL identifiers (such as "Column #6"). In the default locale, this set consists of letters, digits, and the underscore ( _ ) symbol.

Database identifiers (also called SQL identifiers) are names for database objects, such as tables and columns. Storage identifiers are names for storage objects, such as dbspaces, blobspaces, and sbspaces (smart blob spaces). You cannot use DELIMIDENT to declare storage identifiers that contain characters outside the default SQL character set.

Delimited identifiers are case sensitive. To use delimited identifiers, applications in ESQL/C must set DELIMIDENT at compile time and at runtime.

Warning:

If DELIMIDENT is not already set, you should be aware that setting it can cause the failure of existing .sql scripts or client applications that use double ( " ) quotation marks in contexts other than delimiting SQL identifiers, such as delimiters of string literals. You must use single ( ' ) rather than double quotation marks for delimited constructs that are not SQL identifiers if DELIMIDENT is set.

On UNIX systems that use the C shell and on which DELIMIDENT has been set, you can disable this feature (which causes anything between double quotes to be interpreted as an SQL identifier) by the command:

unsetenv  DELIMIDENT