base.Channel.setDelimiter

Define the value delimiter for a channel.

Syntax

setDelimiter(
   delimiter STRING )

delimiter is the value delimiter to be used.

Usage

After creating the channel object, define the field value delimiter with the setDelimiter() method.

CALL ch.setDelimiter("^")

The default delimiter is defined by the DBDELIMITER environment variable, or a pipe (|) if DBDELIMITER is not defined.

Specify CSV as the delimiter to read/write in Comma Separated Value format.

CALL ch.setDelimiter("CSV")

Important: Setting a NULL delimiter is allowed for backward compatibility, but must be avoided. This was a workaround to read/write complete lines. If the delimiter is set to NULL, the read() and write() methods do not use the backslash (\) escape character. As a result, data with special characters like backslash, delimiter or line-feed will be written as is, and reading data will ignore escaped characters in the source stream. If you need to read or write non-formatted data, it is recommended that you use the readLine()/writeLine() methods instead. These methods do not use a delimiter, nor do they use the backslash escape character.