DSXchange

You CAN directly call a sql statement in before job subroutine, by using BCI functions. Search DSXchange for more information, particularly regarding the likelihood that you will need to purchase a license for your DataDirect ODBC driver to be able to use the BCI functions.

Who knows? You see, none of us can see the routine code.

"Phantom" simply means "background process". Ignore that word.

What - completely and precisely - is the error message?

Ok, then. Go for it.

Did you also update the link from the table definition in your repository into your job - effectively re-load the table definition into your job? If not, you would expect the error to persist - this linkage is not maintained automatically.

Yes, but there are sometimes "other_____ways" to seem to achieve the same thing.

First line is column names not being properly handled? I recall one job where this was off, even though the first line was column names. The file was sorted as it went through DataStage, and caused the job to abort (from memory with an Invalid number error).

Have encountered this in the past, and am fairly sure I've posted about it. Yes every version gets a set of dynamic hashed files, each of which requires a directory. The solution in our case was to convert the dynamic hashed files to static hashed, which means that they're just files (and still work...

And who are "they"?

Put the FTP command in a shell script and execute that from DataStage.

Code tags are for this kind of thing.

What warnings/errors are logged (a) by the DataStage job and (b) in the Netezza environment?

Why would you assume Oracle when the OP specifically mentioned Informix?

As a bonus, Len(NULL) returns 0.