Introducing the OLQ SELECT statement › Some Tips On Using CA OLQ › Entering commands

Entering commands

Switching between menu/command mode

If you have signed on to CA OLQ and you see a screen of menu options, you are in CA OLQ's menu facility. Press [PF9] to swap to CA OLQ's command mode screen, which looks like this:

 OLQ 107017 00  CA OLQ Release nn.n
 OLQ 017019 Copyright(C) 2003 CA,Inc.
 OLQ 091057 00  Please enter next command.

Command area of the screen

Type CA OLQ commands in the space above the CA OLQ messages you see on the screen above. You may notice that your terminal shows more or less space in the command area than you see in the above example. The size of the command portion is established at system generation by the INPUT LINE SIZE clause of the OLQ system generation statement. If the command portion of your screen is too small, ask your system administrator to adjust the value assigned to the INPUT LINE SIZE clause.

How to enter commands

Enter CA OLQ commands starting at the upper left corner of the screen. Depending on your preference, enter commands in lower case letters, upper case letters, or both. When CA OLQ interprets a command, it changes the display to upper case letters.

Note: By issuing a DCUF SET UPLOW command before signing on to CA OLQ, CA OLQ recognizes case in character strings and displays processed commands and headings as you entered them.

Separate each word in a command by at least one blank. At a 3270-type terminal, press &retsym. to continue a command on the next line. Press [Enter] to process the command. The processed command appears on the screen. You can edit the command and resubmit it to CA OLQ.

Some useful commands

The SELECT statement is the focus of this manual. However, you'll need some of the commands listed below to facilitate your CA OLQ session:

Some of these commands are described below. For a complete description, see the CA OLQ Reference Guide.

Command delimiters

CA OLQ provides a separator character, which lets you string many commands together. The system default is an exclamation mark (!). All the examples in this manual show an exclamation mark to separate the SELECT statement from a DISPLAY command, which displays the report: select * from dept ! display.

CA OLQ also provides a comment character, which tells CA OLQ treat all text following the delimiter as a comment. The system default is a semi-colon (;). By using a comment character, you can save portions of a command that you want to edit and resubmit. This example shows a DISPLAY command typed over a SELECT statement CA OLQ has already processed:

SELECT * FROM DEPT

display; FROM DEPT

To change the separator and comment characters for your session, use the SET command:

 SET SEPARATOR CHARACTER '$'


 OLQ 092014 00  The SEPARATOR CHARACTER has been modified.

Signing on to a table or subschema

Issue a SIGNON command to tell CA OLQ what subschema to access for data. A SIGNON command is required for CA IDMS/DB subschemas. It is optional for tables.

To sign on to a specific table or subschema enter a SIGNON command: signon table emp.

CA OLQ responds that it is ready to retrieve data:

 SIGNON TABLE EMP


 CA OLQ 100021 00  Ready to retrieve data from subschema RU000371
 CA OLQ 100022 00  Schema:    CA-IDMSDB          Version:       1
 CA OLQ 100023 00  Database name:    ASFDICT
 CA OLQ 100025 00  Dictionary name:  ASFDICT

Using the SELECT statement

You can use CA OLQ command mode to create your own SELECT statements, or you can let CA OLQ's menu facility build the statements for you when you select data. All the examples in this manual use command mode to enter the SELECT statement.