What is the importance of $ character in datastage

parvathi · Post by **parvathi** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 11:53 pm

Hi,
Can anybody tell the importance of the $ character and where we use it and how we use it.?

chulett · Post by **chulett** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 12:22 am

Only when handling money.

Seriously, you need to put a little more context into this question - where have you seen mention of the $ character? That would help drive an appropriate answer.

parvathi · Post by **parvathi** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 3:38 am

$INCLUDE DSINCLUDE SAMP.H

this wasthe first line that was given in the routine that i saw.
I want to know the purpouse of this line.

My aim is to run the shellscript through the datastage routine activity

I wanted to knw whether this is required

ArndW · Post by **ArndW** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 4:04 am

The $ isn't the keyword, "$INCLUDE" is. This is a compile-time switch to include source from another file, in this case "SAMP.H" in "DSINCLUDE". Your code probably will not compile without it. You can read up on $INCLUDE and $INSERT in the DataStage BASIC Programmers Guide

parvathi · Post by **parvathi** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 4:26 am

where will the "DSINCLUDE" be present ?
can i go and see the file SAMP.H AND its contents because i don't what was written in it

ArndW · Post by **ArndW** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 4:50 am

It so happens that DSINCLUDE is the include file that DataStage uses, it is a subdirectory called "dsinclude" in the project directory. SAMP.H is a file in that directory and you can look at it.

n.b. I think that it is bad practice to put user defined include files into DSINCLUDE as they might be overwritten when upgrading or changing versions.

ray.wurlod · Post by **ray.wurlod** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 10:01 am

SAMP.H is unlikely to be a shell script. The routine that contains the $INCLUDE command is definitely not a shell script - it's a DataStage routine.

You can log in to your server, cd to the project directory, cd to the DSINCLUDE subdirectory, and view SAMP.H there with any text viewer.

parvathi · Post by **parvathi** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 1:01 am

thanks all i came to know that it is a datastage library file

ArndW · Post by **ArndW** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 4:12 am

It is a DataStage BASIC header include file; I've never heard the term "library file" used for this. Just keep in mind that this is a user-written header, not one supplied as part of the package.