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SQL programmingYou can use the HCL OneDB™ implementation of the SQL language to develop applications for HCL OneDB™ database servers.
Guide to SQL: SyntaxThe HCL OneDB™ Guide to SQL: Syntax describes the syntax of the statements, data types, expressions, operators, and built-in functions of the HCL OneDB™ dialect of the SQL language.
SQL statementsThis chapter describes the syntax and semantics of SQL statements that are recognized by HCL OneDB™.
SAVE EXTERNAL DIRECTIVES statementUse the SAVE EXTERNAL DIRECTIVES statement to create external optimizer directives for a specified query, and save the directives in the database. These directives are applied automatically to subsequent instances of the same query. This statement is an extension to the ANSI/ISO standard for SQL.
The ACTIVE, INACTIVE, and TEST ONLY Keywords

The ACTIVE, INACTIVE, and TEST ONLY Keywords

You must include one of the ACTIVE, INACTIVE, or TEST ONLY keyword options to enable, disable, or restrict the scope of external directives:

If external directives are enabled, the ACTIVE keyword applies the list of directives to any subsequent query that matches the query string.
The INACTIVE keyword causes HCL OneDB™ to ignore the directive. (It is associated with the query in sysdirectives, but it is dormant, with no effect.)
If external directives are enabled, the TEST ONLY keywords apply the directives only to matching queries that the DBA or user informix executes. Queries by any other users cannot use TEST ONLY external directives.

An INACTIVE directive has no effect unless the DBA or user informix changes the sysdirectives.active system catalog column value from zero (INACTIVE) to one (ACTIVE) or two (TEST ONLY) for that directive. External directives do not have SQL identifiers, but the DBA can reference the sysdirectives.id column in an UPDATE statement to specify which external directive to update.

Alternatively, the DBA or user informix can delete an INACTIVE or TEST ONLY row from sysdirectives and use the SET EXTERNAL DIRECTIVES statement to redefine the deleted directive, but now specifying the ACTIVE keyword. This can give other users access to TEST ONLY directives that the DBA has validated.