Requirements and Options for Host Languages › Using SQL in a COBOL Application Program › Referring to Host Variables

Referring to Host Variables

What You Can Do

CA IDMS supports references to host variables in SQL statements. The host variable name must be prefixed with a colon (:).

Note: For more information, see Referring to Host Variables.

CA IDMS also supports references to:

• Subordinate elements which may require qualification for uniqueness
• Subscripted elements

Qualifying Host Variable Names

CA IDMS supports two methods of qualifying host variable names.

For example, assume these host variable definitions:

01 EMP
     03 HIRE-DATE
 .
 .
 .
01 MGR
     03 HIRE-DATE
 .
 .
 .

The method of qualifying HIRE-DATE in either of the following examples is valid:

EXEC SQL
  SELECT...
    INTO :HIRE-DATE OF EMP

----------------

EXEC SQL
  SELECT...
    INTO :EMP.HIRE-DATE

Subscripted Variable Names

A CA IDMS extension of the SQL standard supports host variable arrays for use in bulk processing. By further extension of the SQL standard, CA IDMS supports reference to a subscripted variable in a host variable array.

All of the following are valid host variable references:

• :DIV-CODE(1)
• :DIV-CODE (15)
• :DIV-CODE(SUB1)
• :DIV-CODE(SUB1,SUB2)