Standard Command Set

Before describing individual commands it is useful to get a view of the standard command set. All commands are available in all translators although some are no-ops for some translators.

Data Source Definition

cd	Change directory
open	Open data source(s) (a no-op on database interfaces).
close	Close data source(s) (a no-op on database interfaces).

Data Selection and Retrieval

select	Define a query (treated as SQL by database interfaces)
set_class	Define a class (structure) for subsequent data storage by the client.
box / clip	Define a clipping region(s)
ignore_box / ignore_clip	Define inverse clipping region(s)
objfetch	Fetch data and send to the client
draw	Fetch data and send to the client for draw-only purposes

Database Interface Commands

Database interfaces have direct connections to database servers (ODBC, Oracle etc.). Any commands not recognised as translator commands are passed through to the database as SQL, e.g. select, insert, update, delete. In addition, the following commands are understood by database interfaces only.

connect	Connect to the database
fetch	Fetch a row of data and send to the client
multifetch	Fetch multiple rows of data and send to the client
plsql	Execute a PL/SQL command

Translators which are not database interfaces do not understand SQL and any such commands will product syntax errors.

Monitoring

debug	Turn on debug messages
progress	Turn on data retrieval progress messages
quiet	Turn on quiet mode, to suppress translator messages
statistics	Turn on data retrieval statistics messages

Default Symbology

color	Set the color override for graphics
fillstyle	Set the fill style for polygons
linestyle	Set the line style for vectors
markerangle	Set the angle for marker symbols
markerheight	Set the height for marker symbols
markerstyle	Set the style for marker symbols
textheight	Set the height for annotations
textstyle	Set the style for annotations
thickness	Set the thickness for vectors

General Data Settings

init	Initialize the client
group	Set group/layer information
projection	Set projection information
units	Set unit of measurement information
ipath	Set a path for entity file references

Listing and Querying

list_class	List details of the current query
list_symbology	List current symbology settings
query_extents	Query the extents of the current data source
query_version	Query the version of the translator
help	Display command help information
message_log	Direct listings/messages to a file
message	Send a user message to the client

Compression Control

generalize	Set the line simplification tolerance
packet	Set the network traffic buffer size
pcompress	Set eim general packet compression
vcompress	Set eim vector compression

Utilities

command	Set a command for the client to execute
exec	Execute a translator command script
outfile	Direct output to an eim file
reset	Perform a "soft reset" on the translator environment
clear_cache	Clear the internal object name cache
quit	Stop the translator