Sybase Interview Question:

Are there any alternatives to isql in Sybase?

Submitted by: Administrator

sqsh
In my opinion, and that of quite a lot of others, this is the most useful (direct) replacement for isql that exists. It combines the usefulness of a good shell with database interaction. Looking for the ability to page the output of a long command? Look no further. Need to search a result set using a regular expression? This is the tool for you.

Like isql, sqsh is a command line tool. It supports all of the features and switches of isql with myriad of its own. There is one feature that isql has the sqsh does not, and that is the ability to read the password as the first line of an input file. If you look at a lot of the examples above, the password is piped in, sqsh does not support this with the latest release. I am not sure if this is a deliberate feature or not.

A quick summary of its features:
1. command line editing;
2. command history;
3. ability to pipe to standard filters;
4. ability to redirect output to X window;
5. shell variables
6. background execution;
Submitted by: Administrator