xql - minimal XBSQL command-line client

This program allows handling XBase data files via XBSQL from the command line. A directory with a set of .dbf files is seen by the user as a single database, and particular files are seen by the program as tables. Tables are named after the base names of the .dbf files. User can pass the working directory via an optional [dir] argument. If this argument is omitted, the current directory is used.

The xql program uses an SQL subset as supported by the libxbsql library. Command can be multiline. The semicolon character (;) is used to separate commands (each command must be terminated by a semicolon. In addition to the standard SQL command subset, some additional commands are recognized:

copy <table-name>

Bulk inserting. This command allows inserting bulk data into tables. After issuing this command all subsequent rows are inserted into the table. Fields in each row must be put in the same order as in the table structure and separated by single tab character. A backslash and dot indicates the end of the bulk data.

desc <table-name>

Prints out thedefinition of the selected table. Lists fields names, their types and lengths.

exit

Exits the program.

show tables

Displays table names. This command shows the names of all tables in the working directory.

-c

Be case sensitive. All tables, column names etc. will be matched with case sensitivity. Strings also will be compared case sensitively by default.

-d

Dump rows after displaying. This option frees memory after rows have been displayed by SELECT statements. It may be useful when the amount of displayed data is large compared to amount of available memory.

-p

Pack tables. By default deleted records are simply flagged as deleted but still remain in data files. If this option has been specified, deleted records will be physically removed.

-s

Go slow. This option affects SELECT queries. When passed, the data is handled in a manner which reduces the amount of memory used, at the expense of execution time. Useful then returning large amounts of data compared to a relatively small amount of memory. Performance will be worst affected if the data (rows and columns) are accessed randomly.

-w

Use wildcards. The default operation of the LIKE operator is to use the % sign to match arbitrary (possibly empty) strings. This option can be used to enable wildcard matching that uses UNIX shell-like wildcard characters.

-v

Be verbose.

-V

Be even more verbose.

The XBSQL library is documented in HTML. Install the libxbsql-dev package and browse /usr/share/doc/libxbsql-dev/doc/index.html.

This manual page was written by Rafal Lewczuk <rlewczuk@pronet.pl> for the Debian system (but may be used by others). Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU General Public License, Version 2 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.

On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL.

Rafal Lewczuk.