About This Guide

The QNX Database (QDB) Developer's Guide accompanies the QDB database server and is intended for application developers.

This table may help you find what you need in this book:

For information about:	See:
QDB Overview	Introduction
QDB command-line options	Starting QDB
Executing SQL statements from the command-line	The QDB Client `qdbc`
Managing a database	QDB Administration
Sample application	QDB Example
Supported data types	QDB Datatypes
Op codes	QDB Op Codes
Writing your own SQL or collation functions	Writing User-Defined Functions
Client API	QDB API reference
SQL commands	SQL reference

Typographical conventions

Throughout this manual, we use certain typographical conventions to distinguish technical terms. In general, the conventions we use conform to those found in IEEE POSIX publications. The following table summarizes our conventions:

Reference	Example
Code examples	`if( stream == NULL )`
Command options	`-lR`
Commands	`make`
Environment variables	PATH
File and pathnames	`/dev/null`
Function names	exit()
Keyboard chords	Ctrl-Alt-Delete
Keyboard input	`something you type`
Keyboard keys	Enter
Program output	`login:`
Programming constants	NULL
Programming data types	`unsigned short`
Programming literals	`0xFF`, `"message string"`
Variable names	stdin
User-interface components	Cancel

We use an arrow (→) in directions for accessing menu items, like this:

You'll find the Other... menu item under Perspective-->Show View.

We use notes, cautions, and warnings to highlight important messages:

Notes point out something important or useful.

Cautions tell you about commands or procedures that may have unwanted or undesirable side effects.

Warnings tell you about commands or procedures that could be dangerous to your files, your hardware, or even yourself.

Note to Windows users

In our documentation, we use a forward slash (/) as a delimiter in all pathnames, including those pointing to Windows files.

We also generally follow POSIX/UNIX filesystem conventions.

Navigation buttons

At the top and bottom of our HTML docs, you'll see some or all of these buttons:

Use this button:	To move:
	To the previous part of the document.
	“Up” in the document: In a prose book, this typically takes you to About This Guide. In a reference book, it takes you to the listing of items that start with a given letter. For example, if you're looking at the docs for abs(), this button takes you to the listing of the functions that start with `A`.
	To the keyword index.
	To the next part of the document.

Technical support

If you have any questions, comments, or problems with a QNX product, please contact Technical Support. For more information, see the How to Get Help chapter of the Welcome to the QNX Software Development Platform guide or visit our website, www.qnx.com.