DELIMITER Clause

Use the DELIMITER clause of the UNLOAD statement to specify the delimiter that separates the data contained in each column in a row in the output file.

If you omit this clause, then DB-Access checks the setting of the DBDELIMITER environment variable. If DBDELIMITER has not been set, the default delimiter is the pipe ( | ) symbol. You can specify the tab character TAB (CTRL-I) or a blank space (ASCII 32) as the delimiter symbol.

The following characters are not valid in any locale as delimiter symbols:
  • Newline character (CTRL-J)
  • Hexadecimal digits (0 to 9, a to f, A to F)
  • Backslash ( \ )

The backslash ( \ ) is not a valid field separator or record delimiter because it is the default escape character, indicating that the next character is a literal character in the data, rather than a special character. However, if you change the default escape character by setting the DEFAULTESCCHAR configuration parameter or the DEFAULTESCCHAR session environment option, you can use a backslash as a field separator.

The following UNLOAD statement specifies the semicolon ( ; ) as the delimiter: 
UNLOAD TO 'cust.out' DELIMITER ';'
   SELECT fname, lname, company, city FROM customer;