In order to understand the Informix server version, you should look at the complete version of the product. You can get this by provided a -V to any of the Informix server binaries. (typically onstat -V). You should get something back like 11.70.UC1.
The first part of the version, upto the first period, is the major version number. In our example 11
The second part of the version, between the first and second periods, is the minor release number, 70 in our example.
The last part of the version is the most interesting and encodes many pieces of information.
The first position is a letter indicates the platform, some common platforms are listed below:
| U | 32 bit Unix |
| F | 64 bit Unix or Windows |
| T | 32 bit Windows |
The second position is another letter indicates the type of product, generally only C for commercial.
The third position is a number indicating the maintenance release.
The letters starting at the the forth position can mean a few different things. The most common is the edition, followed by a special patch provided by IBM Informix support, a diagnostic build provided by IBM Informix support, or a combination of the items listed.
A list of the edition letter and there mean is listed below. For a great article explaining what is different between the editions see Comparing the Informix 11 Editions
| TL | Time Licensed |
| ET | Time Licensed |
| E | Express Edition |
| DE | Developer Edition |
| WE | Workgroup Edition |
| CE | Ultimate Choice Edition |
| CH | Choice Edition |
| GE | Growth Edition |
| IE | Innovator Edition |
| empty | Ultimate Edition |
Lastly there is an SQL programming interface to retrieve the version and the different version components. You may use the SQL function called DBINFO(). The first argument is the string version followed by one of five options
| dbinfo(“version”,”full”) | Informix, Version 11.70.UC6 |
| dbinfo(“version”,”major”) | 11 |
| dbinfo(“version”,”minor”) | 70 |
| dbinfo(“version”,”os”) | U |
| dbinfo(“version”,”level”) | UC6 |