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Manual Reference Pages  - FreeTDS (February 24, 2006)

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bsqldb - batch SQL script processor using db-lib

CONTENTS

Synopsis
Description
Options
Notes
Exit Status
History
Authors
Bugs

bsqldb [-U username] [-P password] [-S server] [-D database]
[-i input_file] [-o output_file] [-e error_file]
[-t field_term] [-qv]

bsqldb is a utility program distributed with FreeTDS.

bsqldb is a non-interactive equivalent of the "isql" utility programs distributed by Sybase and Microsoft. Like them, bsqldb uses the command "go" on a line by itself as a separator between batches. The last batch need not be followed by "go".

bsqldb makes use of the db-lib API provided by FreeTDS. This API is of course also available to application developers.

	-U username Database server login name.
	-P password Database server password.
	-S server Database server to which to connect.
	-D database Database to use.
	-i input_file Name of script file, containing SQL.
	-o output_file Name of output file, holding result data.
	-e error_file Name of file for errors.
	-t field_term Specifies the field terminator. Default is two spaces (’ ’). Recognized escape sequences are tab (’\t’), carriage return (’\r’), newline (’\n’), and backslash (’\#146;).
	-q Do not print column metadata, return status, or rowcount.
	-v Verbose mode, for more information about the db-lib interaction. This also reports the result set metadata, including and return code. All verbose data are written to standard error (or -e), so as not to interfere with the data stream.

bsqldb is a filter; it reads from standard input, writes to standard output, and writes errors to standard error. The -i, -o, and -e options override these, of course.

The source code for bsqldb is intended as a model for db-lib users. db-lib has a rich set of functions, and it can be hard sometimes to understand how to use them, particularly the first time. If you are using it in this way and find something unclear, you are encouraged to email the author your comments.

bsqldb exits 0 on success, and >0 if the server cannot process the query.

bsqldb will report any errors returned by the server, but will continue processing. In a production environment, this behavior may be insufficiently stringent. To make it extremely intolerant of errors, change the message and error handlers to call exit(3).

bsqldb first appeared in FreeTDS 0.63.

The bsqldb utility was written by James K. Lowden <jklowden@schemamania.org>

Microsoft servers as of SQL Server 7.0 SP 3 do not return output parameters unless the RPC functions are used. This means bsqldb cannot return output parameters for stored procedures with these servers.
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