Environment variables for clients
Client SDK, Version 4.10, supports the following environment variables.
For JDBC-specific environment variables, see Informix environment variables with the IBM Informix JDBC Driver.
The following environment variables affect all client products, unless otherwise stated.
| Environment variable | Purpose | Publication reference and possible values |
|---|---|---|
| CC8BITLEVEL | Specifies how the C-language compiler processes non-ASCII (8-bit and multibyte) characters. | Default is 2. |
| CLIENT_LOCALE | Specifies the locale that the client application uses to perform read/write operations that involve the keyboard, display, file, or printer on the client computer. | Any valid locale specifier. No default. |
| DB_LOCALE | Specifies the locale of all the databases that a client application accesses in a single connection (the database locale). | |
| DBANSIWARN | When turned on (y), causes the preprocessor to check for Informix® extensions to ANSI-standard SQL syntax at compile time and causes an application to check for Informix extensions at run time. | Default is n. |
| DBCENTURY | Specifies how to expand values of two-digit-year DATE and DATETIME values. P = past century, R = present century, C = closest century. | Values: P, R, or C Default is R. |
| DBFLTMASK | Specifies the number of decimal digits to use when storing a DECIMAL, SMALLFLOAT, or FLOAT data type in a character buffer DB-Access only. | Values: 0–16 Default is 16. |
| DBLANG | Specifies the subdirectory of the Informix installation directory that contains the product-specific message (.iem) files. | Default is \msg. |
| DBMONEY | Specifies the end-user format for MONEY values so that they can conform with various international and local monetary conventions. | Default is $.,. |
| DBPATH | Identifies the database servers that contain databases that the application accesses. | |
| DBTEMP | Specifies the directory on the client computer that the client processor uses to store temporary files (also called swap files). | Default is \tmp. |
| DELIMIDENT | Indicates whether (y) or (n) to interpret strings in double quotation marks as delimited identifiers. | Default is n. |
| ESQLMF | Indicates whether the ESQL/C processor automatically invokes the ESQL/C multibyte filter (value=1 and CC8BITLEVEL<3, or not value=0). | |
| FET_BUF_SIZE | Overrides the default size of the fetch buffer. | Any valid buffer size, in bytes. Default value depends on row size. |
| GL_DATE | Specifies a customized end-user format for DATE values. | |
| GL_DATETIME | Specifies a customized end-user format for DATETIME values. | |
| IFX_DISABLE_IPV6 | Disables IPv6 support for a single database instance or for a single client application. | Values: yes or no. Default is no. |
| IFX_FLAT_UCSQ | Overrides the global setting and directs the optimizer to use subquery flattening for all sessions. | Default is 0. |
| INFORMIXCONRETRY | Specifies the maximum number of additional connection attempts made to a database server in the time limit that CONTIME specifies. | Default is 1. |
| INFORMIXCONTIME | Specifies the number of seconds an SQL CONNECT statement continues to try to establish a connection before it generates an error. | Default is 60(seconds). |
| INFORMIXDIR | Identifies the location of the client programs, library files, message files, header files, and other HCL Informix software components. INFORMIXDIR must always be set. | Default is C:\INFORMIX. |
| INFORMIXSERVER | Identifies the default database server. | |
| INFORMIXSQLHOSTS | Specifies the name of the computer on which the central registry is located. | |
| NODEFDAC | In databases not created WITH LOG MODE ANSI, setting this to yes prevents the PUBLIC group from receiving table privileges or routine privileges by default when tables or when owner-privileged UDRs are created. | Default is for PUBLIC to hold all table and routine privileges. |
| OPTMSG | Enables optimized message transfers (message chaining) for all SQL statements in an application. | Default is the value that LANG specifies. |
| OPTOFC | Enables optimize-OPEN-FETCH-CLOSE functionality in an ESQL/C application that uses DECLARE and OPEN statements to execute a cursor. | Default is the value that LANG specifies. |
| TMP | Can be used to change the location temporary space directory used during installation. This is useful if there is not enough space in the default /tmp directory. | Any valid path. |
Environment variables for backward compatibility with HCL Informix ESQL/C products
For environment variables that you can use if you need backward compatibility with older versions of HCL Informix ESQL/C on Windows, see Fields of the InetLogin structure.
| Environment variable | Purpose | Possible values |
|---|---|---|
| DBDATE | Specifies the end-user format for DATE values so that they can conform with various international date conventions. Provided for backward compatibility with pre-7.2 products. GL_DATE is recommended for 7.2 ESQL/C applications. | Default is MDY4 unless NLS variable LC_TIME is activated. |
| DBTIME | Specifies the end-user format for DATETIME values so that they can conform with various international date conventions. GL_DATETIME is recommended for 7.2 ESQL/C applications. Provided for backward compatibility with pre-7.2 products. | Default is %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S. |