Database Interface Commands

As discussed earlier, database interfaces have direct connections to database servers (ODBC, Oracle etc.). Any commands not recognised as program commands are passed through to the database as SQL, e.g. select, insert, update. If such commands are not understood by the database as SQL, an SQL database parsing error is typically recorded.

Translators which are not database interfaces have no database connection, so neither SQL nor the commands listed below will be understood, with the exception of the select command which is often implemented as a translator command.

connect

connect <connect_string>

For database interfaces, this specifies the connection to the database (e.g. Oracle, ODBC etc.). This command should only be used within a startup script. It is not permitted to change a database connection once a database interface has started.

The form of the connect string will be database dependent and to hide any sensitive connection information from prying eyes, an encoded string may be used. The utility fxencode is available for such encoding.

fetch

fetch {into} <client_variable> ...

Fetch a row of data. This typically follows a select command, reads a row of data returning it to the client (Fire) to be stored in client variables.

multifetch

multifetch {<n>} {into} <client_array> ...

Fetch multiple rows of data. This typically follows a select command, reads all rows (or a specific number of rows <n>) of data returning them to the client (Fire) to be stored in client arrays.

plsql

plsql <command> ...

Execute a PL/SQL command. The contents of <command> are passed straight through to the database.

Note: Not all database interfaces have PL/SQL facilities.