NEVER TYPE THIS

oninit -i

When I started working with the Informix DBA who was consulting for my previous job, I expressed an interest in learning more Informix DBA stuff. He said, "Great! Here's the first thing you need to learn: never ever type "oninit -i". Repeat that after me."

So I did, and later I learned what it meant. It reinitializes all the dataspaces, returning them to a fixed, known state - i.e. empty. Like FORMAT C: for your data warehouse.

He explained, using the following story:

So, this DBA I know had called me up and asked, "Terry, how do you recover from "oninit -i"?

I said, "You have to restore from your latest Informix Level 0 Archive."

"But, what if you don't have a recent Level 0?

"In that case, monster.com."

It's true that there are times when you need to type it, such as in a fresh Informix installation. But you must know exactly why you're doing it, and you don't ever just pick it from the list of options when attempting to troubleshoot a problem.

And so I never did it by mistake, thanks to this warning.