Performing System Administration Tasks

You can enter SAP ASE commands using either isql or the SAP^® Control Center graphic tool.

For complete information about using isql, see the Utility Guide. For complete information about using SCC, see the online help.

You can use isql to enter many Transact-SQL.

To start isql on most platforms, enter this command at an operating system prompt, where username is the system administrator:

isql -Uusername

SAP ASE prompts you for your password. To prevent other users from seeing your password, do not use the isql -P option.

The statements that you enter in isql can span several lines. Statements are not processed until you enter go on a separate line.

For example:

1> select * 
2> from sysobjects 
3> where type = "TR" 
4> go

The examples used throughout the SAP ASE documentation do not include the go command between statements. If you are typing the examples, you must enter the go command to see the sample output.

You can save the Transact-SQL statements you use to create or modify user databases and database objects.

The easiest way to do this is to create or copy the statements to an ASCII-formatted file. You can then use the file to supply statements to isql to re-create databases or database objects later.

The syntax for using isql with an ASCII-formatted file is the following, where filename is the full path and file name of the file that contains Transact-SQL statements:

isql -Uusername -ifilename

On UNIX and other platforms, use the “less than” symbol (<) to redirect the file.

The Transact-SQL statements in the ASCII file must use valid syntax and the go command.

When reading commands from a file, you must:

Supply the -Ppassword option at the command line, or,
Include the named user’s password on the first line of the input file