Command Details

All translators share a common command set, although because of inherent differences in the data sources being retrieved, each extends this command set to cope with features specific to its own data model.

Concepts

The command interface is based on the tried and tested SQL concept of:

• issue a query   (select or iselect command)

• set retrieval characteristics    (set command)

• fetch the data   (objfetch, fetch or multifetch command)

This approach, with extensions to the select command for different data models, is applied to all interfaces.

Syntax

Command text is based on the <verb> <parameters> system, where case is ignored for commands and keywords.

Command parameters can be quoted where necessary, and for most commands comma or white space separators are permitted.

Commands may start with a leading *. This is stripped off by the translator.

Blank lines and comment lines (those beginning with a #) are ignored.