qbf Command—Start Query-By-Forms

The qbf command invokes Query-By-Forms (QBF), a forms-based interface for manipulating data in a database.

For a complete description of QBF, see the Character-based Querying and Reporting Tools User Guide.

The qbf command has the following format:

qbf dbname |vnode::dbname[/server_class] [-mmode] [[-t]|-f|-j|-l querytarget]
[-e] [s] [uusername] [Ggroupid]

• dbname

  Identifies the name of the database, and if required, the vnode and server_class, as described in Standard Flags and Parameters.

• -mmode

  Bypasses the Join Definition phase of QBF, putting you directly into the mode function for Query Execution, where mode is retrieve, append, update or all. If you use the -m flag, you must also specify a querytarget.

• -t

  Indicates that querytarget is a table. A table field format will be used to query the table. This is the default type.

• -f

  Indicates that querytarget is a QBFName. This invokes Query-By-Forms with a Visual-Forms-Editor form.

• -j

  Indicates that querytarget is a JoinDef.

• -l

  Allows QBF to locate the querytarget type. QBF searches in the order QBFName, JoinDef, table, until it finds the querytarget specified.

• querytarget

  Identifies the table, view, synonym, QBFName, or JoinDef you want to access in your query.

  If you specify a query target, you must own all the tables that underlie the query target or have the proper permissions to access them. If you specify a JoinDef for the query target, you or the database administrator must own it.

  Specifying querytarget puts you directly into the Query Execution phase. If you specify it without also specifying -mmode, you have the option of switching to the Join Definition phase.

  The table, view, or synonym name can be qualified with a valid schema name in the format schema.name, as described in Schemas Qualifier.

  You can specify the type of querytarget to QBF by using the -t, -f, -j, or -l flag. If no flag is specified for querytarget, QBF assumes that the type is table and generates an error if it cannot find a table with that name.

• -e

  Invokes the command in expert mode, causing the catalogs to be displayed empty initially. Doing this allows you to enter the name of a specific object directly, rather than select it from a list.

• -s

  Suppresses status messages.

• -uusername

  Specifies the effective user for the session, as described in Standard Flags and Parameters.

• -Ggroupid

  Specifies a group identifier, as described in Standard Flags and Parameters.

  On VMS, enclose this parameter in double quotation marks ("-Ggroupid").