Call

Calls an Ingres tool (subsystem) or another application, with parameters.

call subsystem ([parametername = value
{, parametername = value}])

Specifies a parameter to be passed to the subsystem. This is often a synonym for a command line flag or the name of an Ingres object.

Specifies the value to be assigned to the parameter: any single-valued expression that evaluates to the data type of the parameter and that fits the context of the parameter.

Place string values in quotes. For a parameter with no value, place an empty string to the right of the equal sign. Fields specified must be non-nullable.

The 4GL call statement lets you call an Ingres tool from within a user‑specified frame in an application. When the application user exits from the subsystem, 4GL returns to the current form, and control passes to the statement following the call.

The subsystem is a 4GL name that you can specify at run time.

Before issuing a call subsystem statement, you must commit any ongoing multi-query transactions. If you do not issue a commit, 4GL automatically commits the transaction without a warning message before it invokes the subsystem.

For more information about the functions and flags of each subsystem, see the appropriate sections of this guide.

You can pass parameters of any legal type to the subsystem. 4GL converts the values to one of the base types of character, integer, decimal, or float, according to the following table:

4GL Type	Base Type
integer	integer
float	float
money	float
decimal	decimal
date	string (length=25)
c	string
char	string
text	string
varchar	string

These are the variants of the call statement:

Calls the Report-Writer to store a report specification in the database

You use different parameters and values in a call subsystem statement depending on the subsystem or application. Parameter names for each variant are listed below. Many of these parameters have the same effect as command line flags used when you call the subsystem from the operating system.

For most subsystem calls, you can use the flags parameter to pass the values of any flags, including those that do not have defined parameter names, with the exception of the -u flag. You can use the -u flag only when you invoke a database at the start of the underlying application.

Within the string containing the flags, separate each distinct flag by a blank space or tab. For a list of available flags for each subsystem, see your query language reference guide.

The flags parameter does not exist for calls to application. In addition, calls to an interactive query language can use the flags parameter only for a few flags, as described below in the section on isql.

The following sections list the parameters for each of the call statement variants.