14.1 The Structure of a Query

The general format of a query is:

[optional query flag [optional query flag argument]] <query argument> 

The query flags may be before or after the query argument.

Many query flags have a short and long format. The short format is:

-short_query_flag [optional query flag argument]

for example,  -B dw-ripe

The long format is:

--long_query_flag [optional query flag argument]

for example, --no-filtering dw-ripe

When a query includes many query flags, the short and long format options may be mixed. You may list each query flag separately, for example:

-B –i tech-c --no-grouping DW-RIPE

You can also group short query flags together. The long query flags must always be separated. When short flags are grouped, only the last flag in a group may have a flag argument, as in:

-Bi TECH-c --no-grouping dw-RIPE

The query argument is not case-sensitive. As shown in the examples above, it can be in upper case, lower case or a mixed case. Query flags are case-sensitive. This applies to both short- and long-format flags. However, the arguments to the query flags are not case-sensitive. There can be an optional space between a query flag and its argument. However, if the query flag argument is a list, there can be no spaces between elements of the list.

-rBG –Tinetnum,inet6num –imb ripe-ncc-hm-mnt

-rBG –T inetnum,inet6num –i MB ripe-ncc-hm-mnt

A list of query flags and query flag arguments are available.