Welcome
Administering
In addition to administering the database server, you can tune performance, replicate data, and archive data.
System administration
These topics contain concepts, procedures, and reference information for database and database server administrators to use for managing and tuning HCL Informix® database servers.
High-Performance Loader User's Guide
The describes how to use the HCL Informix® to load and unload large quantities of data efficiently to or from Informix databases.
Appendixes
This section contains additional reference information.
Custom drivers
If your operating system supports dynamic linking of libraries, you can use a custom driver to extend the functionality of the to support different file types or access mechanisms.
Available API support functions
This section describes the API support functions that you can use with custom drivers.
The pl_get_recordlength() function
This function returns the length of the active record format. If the format is for a delimited record type, the value returned is 0.

HCL Informix® V15.0.0 documentation
Welcome to the documentation for HCL Informix® 15.0.0 and related client tools and products.
Product overview
HCL Informix® is a fast and scalable database server that manages traditional relational, object-relational, and dimensional databases. Its small footprint and self-managing capabilities are suited to embedded data-management solutions.
Installing
These topics describe how to install HCL Informix® database servers, client products, and modules.
Administering
In addition to administering the database server, you can tune performance, replicate data, and archive data.
- System administration
  These topics contain concepts, procedures, and reference information for database and database server administrators to use for managing and tuning HCL Informix® database servers.
  - List of utilities
    HCL Informix® includes utilities and applications that you can use to perform administrative tasks and capture information about configuration and performance.
  - Administrator's Guide
    The HCL® Informix® Administrator's Guide provides the information required to administer HCL Informix.
  - Administrator's Reference
    The HCL® Informix® Administrator's Reference includes comprehensive descriptions of HCL Informix configuration parameters, the system-monitoring interface (SMI) tables in the sysmaster database, the syntax of database server utilities such as onmode and onstat, logical-log records, disk structures, event alarms, and unnumbered error messages.
  - DB-Access User's Guide
    The HCL® Informix® DB-Access User's Guide describes how to use the utility to access, modify, and retrieve information from HCL Informix database servers.
  - High-Performance Loader User's Guide
    The describes how to use the HCL Informix® to load and unload large quantities of data efficiently to or from Informix databases.
    - High-Performance Loader overview
    - Examples of loading and unloading jobs using the ipload utility
      This section shows how the components of the fit together. The section includes a step-by-step tutorial with two examples (for a load and an unload job) that use the ipload graphical user interface (GUI).
    - The ipload utility windows
      This section contains information about using the ipload utility.
    - Define HPL projects
      This section explains how to create a project and how projects are related. The individual components that you store in projects are described in later sections.
    - Configure the High-Performance Loader
      This section describes the process of configure the .
    - Define device arrays
      This section describes how to define and use device arrays with the .
    - Define formats
      This section describes the formats that the provides and shows how to prepare and edit the format component.
    - Define queries
      This section describe how to define queries including how to create, edit, and export and import queries.
    - Define maps
      This section describes how to define maps with the . It also describes the options that are available for defining maps.
    - Define filters
      This section describes how to create, edit, and delete filters.
    - Unload data from a database
      This section describes the Unload Job window.
    - Load data to a database table
      This section describes the load process.
    - The Generate options of the ipload utility
      This section describes the Generate options for the ipload utility.
    - The HPL browsing options
      This section describes the browsing options that are available for the .
    - Manage the High-Performance Loader
    - The onpload utility
      This section describes how to use the onpload utility.
    - The onpladm utility
      This section describes how to use the onpladm utility.
    - Appendixes
      This section contains additional reference information.
      - The onpload database
        The tables in the onpload database hold information that the onpload utility uses. This section describes the tables in the onpload database that you create or modify with ipload.
      - High-Performance Loader configuration file
        The default $INFORMIXDIR/etc/plconfig.std file on UNIX™ or %\INFORMIXDIR%\etc\plconfig.std on Windows™ is the high-performance loader configuration file.
      - Picture strings
        The HPL uses two types of picture strings: COBOL picture strings and other picture strings.
      - Match condition operators and characters
        This section describes the operators that are available when you match text and it provides an example of each operator.
      - Custom-conversion functions
        Custom-conversion functions allow you to add additional data conversion capability to the . This feature lets onpload call a custom-conversion function during the data-conversion process.
      - The onstat -j option
        The -j option of the onstat utility provides special information about the status of an onpload job. The -j option provides an interactive mode that is analogous to onstat -i.
      - The HPL log-file and pop-up messages
        This section provides explanatory notes and corrective actions for unnumbered messages that print in the log file. The section also includes information specific to messages that are returned to standard output or appear in a pop-up dialog box (depending on the way you started onpload).
      - Custom drivers
        If your operating system supports dynamic linking of libraries, you can use a custom driver to extend the functionality of the to support different file types or access mechanisms.
        Add a custom driver to the onpload utility
        Connect your code to onpload at run time
        When onpload determines that a custom driver is required to read or write data for a given record format, it calls the function pl_get_user_method().
        An example of a custom driver
        The example in this topic shows how to code a custom driver that completely takes over the open, close, read, and write responsibility. The example illustrates the form of a driver and the necessary initialization, registration, and mechanism of the driver. The coding of user- specific functionality is not represented.
        Available driver methods
        Available API support functions
        This section describes the API support functions that you can use with custom drivers.
        The pl_inherit_methods(driver, methodtable) function
        This function loads the passed method function table with the functions currently configured for the passed driver.
        The pl_set_method_function(methodtable, method, function) function
        This function inserts the passed function into the method chain.
        The pl_driver_inherit(method) function
        This function returns a pointer to the function that currently supports the passed method and advances the method chain so that the next request returns the next function in the method list.
        The pl_get_recordlength() function
        This function returns the length of the active record format. If the format is for a delimited record type, the value returned is 0.
        The pl_set_informix_conversion(flag) function
        When this function is set to 1, it disables data conversion during the load. The data must be formatted in HCL Informix® format (as opposed to another type of format that would have to be converted before loading the data into the database). When this function is set to 0, data conversion is enabled.
        The pl_lock_globals() function
        This function ensures global data integrity when you supply a custom driver that uses globally defined variables.
        The pl_reset_inherit_chain(method) function
        This function resets the function inheritance chain to the start of the list. You should need it only if you are implementing recursive processing.
      - Run load and unload jobs on a Windows™ computer
      - Conversion and reversion scripts for HPL database migration
        When you convert or revert to different versions of the database server, you can use conversion and reversion scripts to manually upgrade or revert your onpload database. You must use these scripts if you are required to upgrade between the same server versions.
  - Performance Guide
    The HCL® Informix® Performance Guide describes how to configure and operate your HCL Informix database server to improve overall system throughput and to improve the performance of SQL queries.
  - SNMP Subagent Guide
    The describes the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) and the software that you need to use SNMP to monitor and manage HCL Informix® database servers and databases.
- Backup and Restore Guide
  The HCL® Informix® Backup and Restore Guide describes how to use the HCL Informix and ontape utilities to back up and restore database server data. These utilities enable you to recover your databases after data is lost or becomes corrupted due to hardware or software failure or accident.
- Enterprise Replication
  The describes the concepts of data replication using HCL Informix® Enterprise Replication, including how to design your replication system, as well as administer and manage data replication throughout your enterprise.
Migrating and upgrading
You can upgrade to the 15.0.0 release of HCL Informix® or migrate from other database servers to Informix. Upgrading is an in-place migration method that uses your existing hardware and operating system software. Some changes to the Informix database server can affect upgrading from a previous release.
Client APIs and tools
You can use the HCL Informix® implementation of client APIs to develop applications for Informix database servers.
Embedding Informix®
When you embed HCL Informix®, you can use enterprise-class high-availability and high performance with embeddability features such as easy programmability, a small disk and memory footprint, and silent deployment.
Extending Informix®
Beyond standard relational database objects, HCL Informix® can be extended to handle specialized data types, access methods, routines, and other objects. Informix includes many built-in extensions that are fully integrated in the database server. Informix also provides modules, which are packages of extended database objects for a particular purpose and that are installed separately from the database server. Alternatively, you can create your own user-defined objects for Informix.
Data warehousing
In addition to designing and implementing Informix® dimensional databases, you can use tools to create data warehouse applications and optimize your data warehouse queries.
Designing databases
The first step in creating a relational database is to construct a data model, which is a precise, complete definition of the data you want to store. After you prepare your data model, you must implement it as a database and tables. To implement your data model, you first select a data type for each column and then you create a database and tables and populate the tables with data. You can also implement fragmentation strategies and control access to your data.
JSON compatibility
You can use the popular JSON-oriented query language created by MongoDB to interact with data stored in HCL Informix®.
Security
You can secure your Informix® database server and the data that is stored in your Informix databases. You can encrypt data, secure connections, control user privileges and access, and audit data security.
SQL programming
You can use the HCL Informix® implementation of the SQL language to develop applications for Informix database servers.
Troubleshooting HCL Informix®
Several troubleshooting techniques, tools, and resources are available for resolving problems that you encounter in your HCL Informix® database server environment.

The pl_get_recordlength() function

This function returns the length of the active record format. If the format is for a delimited record type, the value returned is 0.


Function information		Description of arguments
Function type:	int
Return values	length of record PL_RTN_FAIL	Function succeeded Function failed