Chapter 10. The Onstat Utility in IDS

The onstat utility in Informix Dynamic Server should look very familiar to users who have used the earlier OnLine products. Onstat represents the evolution of the tbstat command in OnLine into the parallel processing world of Informix Dynamic Server. Many if not most of the commands from tbstat work exactly the same way in onstat. If you've seen a trick or idea from the last chapter, don't think that it applies only to OnLine engines. Try it with the later versions if there's any question of compatibility.

There have been a few minor evolutionary changes in the tbstat commands, with one revolutionary change that turns it into onstat. That revolutionary change is the onstat -g syntax, which adds the whole new world of parallel processing to the old tbstat command structure. When tbstat was transformed into onstat, tbstat had used up most of the alpha characters for its existing options. Rather than rework the option usage for IDS, onstat added a single option, "-g whatever" where "whatever" is a command restricted to use with IDS engines. Thus, with the "-g" option, onstat typically requires two parameters rather than the old one parameter.