IFX_LONGID

The IFX_LONGID environment variable setting and the version number of the client application determine whether a given client application is capable of handling long identifiers. (Older versions of Informix databases restricted SQL identifiers to 18 or fewer bytes; long identifiers can have up to 128 bytes when IFX_LONGID is set.) Valid IFX_LONGID values are 1 and 0.

When IFX_LONGID is set to zero, applications display only the first 18 bytes of long identifiers, without indicating (by + ) that truncation has occurred.

If IFX_LONGID is unset or is set to a value other than 1 or 0, the determination is based on the internal version of the client application. If the version is not less than 9.0304, the client is considered capable of handling long identifiers. Otherwise, the client application is considered incapable.

The IFX_LONGID setting overrides the internal version of the client application. If the client cannot handle long identifiers despite a newer version number, set IFX_LONGID to 0. If the client version can handle long identifiers despite an older version number, set IFX_LONGID to 1.

If you set IFX_LONGID on the client, the setting affects only that client. If you bring up the database server with IFX_LONGID set, all client applications use that setting by default. If IFX_LONGID is set to different values on the client and on the database server, however, the client setting takes precedence.

ESQL executables that have been built with the -static option using the libos.a library version that does not support long identifiers cannot use the IFX_LONGID environment variable. You must recompile such applications with the new libos.a library that includes support for long identifiers. Executables that use shared libraries (no -static option) can use IFX_LONGID without recompilation provided that they use the new libifos.so that provides support for long identifiers. For details, see your ESQL product manual.