FORMCHAR
Purpose
Provides format control for printing reports. The command has four options: ON, OFF, DEFAULT or any HEX sequence that a printer translates into a printer escape sequence (for example, "0C"XB or '0c'xb).
Syntax
where:
Usage Notes
Use the FORMCHAR command to specify form feed characters for printing reports. With the FORMCHAR set to ON, BTEQ sends a form-feed character to the mainframe printer and puts a single-byte “1” character in column one. For the FORMCHAR setting to be effective, the FORMAT setting must be set to ON as well. See the examples shown below.
Certain printers accept only a special numeric sequence in HEX to produce a form feed at the end of a page. When entering the HEX sequence, either uppercase or lowercase characters are valid. If used, the HEX sequence must be less than or equal to ten HEX characters. Note that when choosing this option, the character sets are implementation-dependent.
If no option is entered, or if an invalid option is entered, the value of FORMCHAR is reset to its initial default value.
The following commands are affected by the FORMCHAR command:
The FORMCHAR setting only affects the output for Field Mode, not Record Mode, Indicator Mode, or Multipart Indicator Mode.
The FORMCHAR command is valid in a Teradata SQL macro.
Example
To specify form feed ON for a workstation-attached system, enter the following commands:
.SET FORMAT ON
.SET FORMCHAR ON
Example
Specify the command for HEX as follows:
.SET FORMAT ON
.SET FORMCHAR "0C"xb
Example
The Example 2 FORMCHAR command in a Teradata SQL macro appears in the following format:
ECHO '.SET FORMCHAR "0C"xb' ;
Example
To enter the default for mainframe-attached operating systems, enter the following commands:
.help bteq
.show controls
.set formchar 'e7'xb
.show controls
.set formchar default
.show controls