DELIMITER Clause

Use the DELIMITER clause to specify the delimiter that separates the data contained in each column in a row in the input file. You can specify TAB (CTRL-I) or a blank space (= ASCII 32) as the delimiter symbol. You cannot use the following items as the delimiter symbol:
  • Backslash ( \ )
  • NEWLINE character (CTRL-J)
  • Hexadecimal numbers (0 to 9, a to f, A to F)

If you omit this clause, the database server checks the DBDELIMITER environment variable. For information about how to set the DBDELIMITER environment variable, see the Informix® Guide to SQL: Reference.

If the DBDELIMITER environment variable has not been set, the default delimiter is the pipe ( | ).

The following example specifies the semicolon ( ; ) as the delimiting character. The example uses Windows™ file-naming conventions. 
LOAD FROM 'C:\data\loadfile' DELIMITER ';'
   INSERT INTO orders;