quel Command—Start the Line Mode QUEL Terminal Monitor

The quel command invokes the line mode Terminal Monitor for QUEL.

For more information about this Terminal Monitor, see the Character-based Querying and Reporting Tools User Guide.

The quel command has the following format:

quel [QUEL option flags] [line-mode flags] dbname |vnode::dbname[/server_class] [<altin] [>altout]

• QUEL option flags

  Specify flags that can be used with the QUEL Terminal Monitor and other commands, as noted. The QUEL option flags determine the format of output or the behavior of the DBMS. You can specify a maximum of 12 QUEL option flags.

  • -cN

    Sets the minimum field width for printing character columns to N. The default is 6.

    -fkxM.N

    Sets floating-point output column width to M characters (total), including N decimal places, and (if warranted), e+-xx and the decimal indicator character itself. k can be 4 or 8 to apply to f4's or f8's respectively; x can be E, F, G or N (uppercase or lowercase) to specify an output format. E indicates exponential format. F or N indicates the floating-point format. G indicates the floating-point format and guarantees decimal alignment.

    If you specify F, N, or G and the number is too large for the format indicated by the flag, it is displayed in exponential format. To prevent this format overflow, M should be greater than or equal to N + 7.

    If you specify F and the number is too large for the format, stars (****) are printed to represent overflow of the display.

    The default display format for both f4 and f8 is n10.3, unless your computer supports the IEEE standard for floating-point numbers, in which case the display format for f4 and f8 is n11.3.

  • -ikN

    Sets integer output column width to N. k can be 1, 2, or 4 for I1's, I2's, or I4's, respectively. The default for N is 6 for I1 and I2 fields, and 13 for I4 fields.

  • -tN

    Sets the minimum field width for printing text columns to N. The default is 6.

    +U|-U

    Enables (+U) or disables (-U) user updating of the system catalogs and secondary indexes, and takes an exclusive lock on the database. To update system catalogs, you must have the update system tables privilege obtained through accessdb.

    +Y|-Y

    Enables (+Y) or disables (-Y) user updating of the system catalogs and secondary indexes, but does not take an exclusive lock on the database.

    -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.

    -Rroleid

    Specifies a role identifier for the session, as described in Standard Flags and Parameters.

    -l

    Locks the database for your exclusive use. When you specify this flag, no one else can open the database while you are in it.

    If you attempt to take an exclusive lock on a database that is in use, the system informs you that the database is temporarily unavailable.

  • -nM

    Sets modify mode on the index command to M. M must be one of the following storage structures: ISAM, CISAM, B-tree, CB-tree, Hash, or CHash. The default structure is ISAM.

  • +w|-w

    Specifies wait (+w) or do not wait (-w) for the database. The default is w. If you specify +w, there is a wait, provided that certain processes are running (sql –l, sql –U, verifydb, rollforwarddb, or sysmod) on the given database. Upon completion of those processes, the operation proceeds.

    If you specify –w and the database is not available, a message is returned and execution is stopped. If you omit the w flag and the database is unavailable, an error message is returned if running in foreground (more precisely, if the standard input is from a terminal). Otherwise, the wait option is invoked.

  • -numeric_overflow = fail|ignore|warn

    Sets error handling mode for numeric overflow, underflow and division by zero.

    The fail setting causes an error message to be issued and the statement is aborted. This is the default setting. To obtain ANSI-compliant behavior, use this setting (or omit for the default).

    The ignore setting causes no error message to be issued.

    The warn setting causes a warning message to be issued.

  • -string_truncation = fail|ignore

    Sets error handling mode for string truncation errors. This error occurs if you attempt to insert a string into a table column that is too short to contain the value.

    The fail setting causes an error message to be issued and the statement is aborted.

    The ignore setting causes no error message to be issued. The string is truncated and inserted. This is the default setting.

• line-mode flags

  Specifies flags that can be used with the QUEL Terminal Monitor only.

  +a|-a

  Sets (+a) or clears (-a) the autoclear option in the terminal monitor. The default is +a.

  +d|-d

  Prints (+d) or does not print (-d) the dayfile. The default is +d.

  +s|-s

  Prints (+s) or does not print (-s) the monitor messages, including prompts. The default is +s. If you specify -s, the dayfile is not displayed.

  -vX

  Sets the column separator to the character specified by X. The default is vertical bar (|).

  -Ppassword

  Identifies the user password.

  -Rrole-name/role-password

  Identifies the role name and optional role password. Separate the name and password with a slash (/).

  -history_recall

  Invokes the terminal monitor with history recall functionality, which lets you retrieve the history of commands typed in the session, and perform other functions. For details, see the SQL Reference Guide.

• dbname

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

• <altin

  Specifies a file from which the Terminal Monitor reads commands. The file must contain all the Terminal Monitor commands needed to run the session. On VMS, no space is allowed between the < character and the file name.

• >altout

  Directs output from the Terminal Monitor to the specified file. On VMS, no space is allowed between the > character and the file name.

quel Examples

This command opens the empdata database:

quel empdata

This command opens empdata and suppresses the dayfile message:

quel empdata –d

This command opens empdata, suppresses the dayfile message and the terminal monitor prompts and messages, and reads into the workspace the contents of the batchfile:

quel empdata –s <batchfile

This command opens empdata, displays f4 columns in G format with two decimal places and I1 columns with three spaces:

quel empdata –f4g12.2 –I13