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 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;