What Is SQL? › Interactive and Embedded SQL

Interactive and Embedded SQL

You can issue SQL statements either interactively or from within an application program.

Interactive SQL

When you use interactive SQL to enter a request or to change data, you get immediate results. This is the typical way of entering ad hoc statements.

For example, you might want to identify all employees who live in Boston. This SQL statement would return a table that includes the last name and first name of all employees residing in Boston:

select emp_lname, emp_fname
       from employee
       where city = 'Boston';

Embedded SQL

You can embed SQL statements in host application programs. With embedded SQL, the program receives the result of the request and acts on it, displays it, or prints it. For example, this embedded SQL statement returns to a COBOL program the last name and first name for employees living in the city requested by the program:

exec sql
select emp_lname, emp_fname
       into :emp_lname, :emp_fname
       from employee
            where city = :city_in
end-exec