Linux cli command sqsh

NAME 🖥️ sqsh 🖥️

Interactive database shell (version 2.5)

SYNOPSIS

sqsh [[options]] [[args……]] [ -a count ] [ -A packet_size ] [ -b ] [ -B ] [ -c [cmdend] ] [ -C sql ] [ -d severity ] [ -D database ] [ -e ] [ -E editor ] [ -f severity ] [ -G tds_version ] [ -h ] [ -H hostname ] [ -i filename ] [ -I interfaces ] [ -J charset ] [ -k keywords ] [ -K keytab] [ -l debug_flags ] [ -L var=value ] [ -m style ] [ -n on|off ] [ -N appname ] [ -o filename ] [ -p ] [ -P [password] ] [ -Q query_timeout ] [ -r [sqshrc] ] [ -R server principal ] [ -s colsep ] [ -S server ] [ -t [filter] ] [ -T login_timeout ] [ -U username ] [ -v ] [ -V [bcdimoqru]] [ -w width ] [ -X ] [ -y directory ] [ -z language ] [ -Z [secmech|default|none] ]

DESCRIPTION

Sqsh (pronounced skwish) is short for SQshelL (pronounced s-q-shell), and is intended as a replacement for the venerable ‘isql’ program supplied by Sybase. It came about due to years of frustration of trying to do real work with a program that was never meant to perform real work.

Sqsh is much more than a nice prompt, it is intended to provide much of the functionality provided by a good shell, such as variables, aliasing, redirection, pipes, back-grounding, job control, history, command substitution, and dynamic configuration. Also, as a by-product of the design, it is remarkably easy to extend and add functionality.

OPTIONS

The following options may be used to adjust some of the behavior of sqsh, however a large portion of the configuration options are available only through environment variables which may be set at runtime or via a .sqshrc file.

Options may also be supplied in the SQSH environment variable. This variable is parsed prior to parsing the command line, so in most cases the command line will override the contents of the variable. Be aware that for options which are allowed to be supplied multiple times, such as -c, supplying them both in a variable and on the command line will be the same as supplying them multiple times on the command line.

-a count

Sets the maximum count of failures (as determined by the $thresh_fail variable) that may occur before sqsh will abort. Setting this to 0 indicates that sqsh should not exit on errors. This value defaults to 0 and may also be set using the $thresh_exit variable. See section EXIT STATUS for details.

-A packetsize

Specifies the size of the network TDS packets used to communicate with the SQL server. This value must be between 512 and 8192, and be a multiple of 512. Check your SQL Server configuration to determine supported packet sizes. This value may also be specified at run-time using the $packet_size variable.

-b

Suppress the banner message upon startup. This is unnecessary in cases where stdout has been redirected to a file. This option may also be set via the $banner variable.

-B

Turns off all buffering of stdin, stdout, and stderr. This feature allows sqsh to be run from an interactive control script such as chat and expect.

-c [cmdend]

Internally sqsh provides the command \go to send a batch of SQL to the database and provides a single alias, go for this command. Each time cmdend is supplied a new alias for \go is established.

-C sql

Causes the sql command to be executed by sqsh, similar to the same behavior exhibited by the -i flag. This sql statement may not contain double quotes (this limitation may be lifted in a future release of sqsh).

-d severity

Sets the minimum SQL Server error severity that will be displayed to the user. The default is 0, and valid ranges are from 0 to 22. This may also be set using the $thresh_display variable. See section EXIT STATUS.

-D database

Causes sqsh to attempt to start with your database context set to database rather than your default database (usually master). This may also be set using the $database variable.

-e

Includes each command issued to sqsh to be included in the output. This option may also be set via the $echo variable (which is unrelated to the cho command).

-E editor

Set the default editor to editor. This may also be set using the UNIX environment variable $EDITOR to the name of the editor desired.

-f severity

Sets the minimum severity level considered a failure by sqsh. This is the same as setting the $thresh_fail variable. See section EXIT STATUS for details.

-G tds_version

Set the TDS version to use. Valid versions are 4.0, 4.2, 4.6, 4.9.5, 5.0 and freetds additionally supports versions 7.0 and 8.0. The specified value is assigned to the variable $tds_version. Input validation is not performed by sqsh. However, when an invalid TDS version is specified, the default version of 5.0 will be used. After a session is setup, the variable $tds_version will be set to the TDS version in effect. The variable will not be available if option -G is not used. Meant for test and debugging purposes only. TDS stands for Tabular Data Stream and is the communication protocol Sybase and Microsoft uses for Client-Server communication.

-h

Turns off column headers and trailing (# rows affected) from batch output.

-H hostname

Sets the client hostname as reported in sysprocesses. This may also be set via the $hostname variable.

-i filename

Read all input from filename rather than from stdin.

-I interfaces

When a connection is established to the database, the interfaces file is used to turn the value of $DSQUERY into the hostname and port to which the connection will be made, by default this is located in $SYBASE/interfaces. This flag allows this default to be overridden.

-J charset

Specifies the character set to be used on the client side to communicate with SQL Server. This may also be set using the $charset environment variable.

-k keywords

Specifies a file containing a list of keywords to be used for keyword tab completion, if readline support has been compiled into sqsh. This file may also be set via the $keyword_file variable, which defaults to $HOME/.sqsh_words.

-K keytab

Kerberos support. Specify the keytab file name for DCE. See the Kerberos Support section below for details.

-l debug_flags

If sqsh has been compiled with -DDEBUG, this option may be used to turn on and off debugging options. See the $debug variable, below.

-L var=value

Sets the value of $var to value. This may be used to set the value of any sqsh variable even if an explicit command line variable is supplied for setting the variable. The -L flag may be used to set the value of non-configuration variables as well.

-m style

Changes the current display style to style. Currently supported styles are horiz, vert, bcp, csv, html, meta, pretty and none. The current display style may also be set using the $style variable or via the -m flag to the \go command.

-n on|off

Enables chained transaction mode on connect (if set to on). Chained transaction mode is also known as AutoCommit off mode.

-N appname

Set the application name sqsh uses to identify itself to the SQL server. The application name can be retrieved from the server using the column program_name of the master.dbo.sysprocesses table. Defaults to sqsh-2.1.7.

-o filename

Redirects all output to filename rather than stdout.

-p

Display performance statistics upon completion of every SQL batch. This option may also be turned on via the $statistics variable, or by supplying the -p flag to the \go command.

-P [password | -]

The Sybase password for username required to connect to server (default, NULL). The password may also be set via $password. Supplying a password of ‘-’ causes the password to be read from the first line of stdin. sqsh takes pains to hide the password from any user trying to view the command line used to launch sqsh, so using -P should not constitute a security hole. Alternatively, you can store your default password in .sqshrc file which is not readable by anyone other than yourself. (chmod 600 .sqshrc)

-Q value

Query timeout value (equivalent to isql’s -t option). If set, will timeout a long running query. Maps to the $query_timeout variable. For example: sqsh -SASE1502 -Usa -P -Q30 ASE1502.sa.master.1> cd tix ASE1502.sa.tix.1> select count(*) from E_TIX; Open Client Message Layer 1, Origin 2, Severity 2, Number 63 ct_results(): user api layer: internal Client Library error: Read from the server has timed out. ASE1502: Query or command timeout detected, command/batch cancelled ASE1502: The client connection has detected this 1 time(s). See also the $max_timeout variable, which controls the number of times a timeout may occur on the current connection before the session is aborted.

-r [sqshrc]

Specifies an alternate .sqshrc file to be processed, rather than the default. If no sqshrc is supplied following -r, then no initialization files are processed. This flag must be the first argument supplied on the command line, all other instances will be ignored.

-R server_principal

Kerberos support: Specifies a server principal to use for network (Kerberos) authentication, if the server name in the interfaces file differs from the real server name. See the Kerberos Support section below for details.

-s colsep

Causes the string colsep to be used to delimit SQL column output columns, this defaults to .

-S server | host:port[:filter]

The name or the address of the Sybase server to connect. The default of this is the external environment variable $DSQUERY. If neither -S nor $DSQUERY is set then defaults to SYBASE. This value may also be set via the internal variable $DSQUERY. The servername must exist in the interfaces or sql.ini file. As an alternative it is also possible to specify the target server as host:port[:filter] where host may also be an IP address. Note that filter may be defined in $SYBASE/$SYBASE_OCS/config/libtcl[64].cfg. For example: [FILTERS] ssl=libsybfssl.so ssl64=libsybfssl64.so

-t [filter]

Enables filtering of command batches through an external program, filter, and prior to being sent to the SQL Server. If filter is not supplied, then $filter_prog is used (default is ‘m4 -’). This value may also be set via the $filter and $filter_prog variables.

-T value

Specifies the login timeout (similar to isql’s -l flag). If set specifies the number of seconds sqsh will wait before timing out a login request. Maps to the $login_timeout variable.

-U username

The Sybase username to connect to the database as, this defaults to the username of the user running sqsh. The username may also be set via the $username variable.

-v

Displays the version number, $version, and exits.

-V [bcdimoqru]

Kerberos support: Specify the security options to use. See the Kerberos Support section below for details.

-w width

The maximum output width of a displayed result set, this defaults to your screen width in interactive mode.

-X

Initiates the login connection to the server with client-side password encryption (if supported). If either SQL Server does not recognize this option, or if the version of CT-Lib used to compile sqsh does not support this option, then it will be ignored. This option may also be set using the $encryption environment variable.

-y directory

Specifies a SYBASE directory to use other than the value of $SYBASE in order to find the interfaces file.

-z language

Specifies an alternate language to display sqsh prompts and messages. Without the -z flag, the server’s default language will be used. This may also be set using the $language variable.

-Z [secmech|default|none]

Kerberos support: Specify the security mechanism to use. See the Kerberos Support section below for details.

args…

If sqsh is run with the -i flag specifying an input file to be processed (rather than initiating an interactive session), arguments may be supplied on the command line to be passed to the input file. These arguments may be accessed using the variables ${0}, ${1}, … (see the Variables section, below, for more information).

Initialization

Upon startup, sqsh initializes all internal environment variables, commands, and aliases to their default values, it then looks in the system-wide configuration file, /etc/sqshrc, followed by a local configuration file $HOME/.sqshrc (this may be overridden via the SQSHRC external environment variable). If this file is found it is executed just like a script would be using the -i flag.

The .sqshrc file may contain anything that could normally be typed at the prompt, however it should be noted that at the time this file is read sqsh has yet to establish a connection to the database, however most commands that perform database activity, such as \go will attempt to establish a database connection when executed (it may also prompt you for a password if necessary). Also, if database activity is required within this startup file, the **