Sending commands to the database

Once you are connected to the database, you can send commands to it. For example, type the following line in the SQL Statements window.

SELECT * FROM employee;

Execute your command using F9 or Alt+S, X.

For more details about executing SQL statements, see Chapter 2, “Using Interactive SQL (dbisql),” in the Sybase IQ Utility Guide.

The example SQL statement that you just executed displays all (*) the columns of the table named employee. This table contains information about the employees of a fictitious merchandising company.

DBISQL returns output from your statement in the Results area at the bottom of the screen.

Figure 3-3: Interactive SQL window

Shown is the Interactive sequel window with two panes. The top pane, sequel statements, contains the text select asterisk from employees; The bottom pane, results, displays the values of each row of columns in the table, sorted by row ID in descending order. Below the results are tabs for Messages and Plan and the row count 75 rows

DBISQL retrieved the information by sending a request to your database server. The server, in turn, looked up the information in the employee table and returned it to DBISQL.