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ESQL in C/C++ Programs

Mimer SQL supports ESQL for C/C++ following the ANSI standard.

SQL Statement Format

The following sections discuss the SQL statement format.

Statement Delimiters

SQL statements are identified by the leading delimiter EXEC SQL and terminated by a semicolon ;, for example: 

 EXEC SQL DELETE FROM countries;

Line Continuation

Line continuation rules for SQL statements are the same as those for ordinary C statements.

For a string constant, a white-space character (ASCII HEX-values 09 - 0D, or 20, i.e. <TAB>, <LF>, <VT>, <FF>, <CR> or <SP>), can be used to join two or more sub-strings. Each substring must be separately enclosed in delimiters. For example: 

 EXEC SQL COMMENT ON TABLE currencies IS 'Holds currency'<CR>
                                         ' details';

Comments

Comments, from // to end-of-line or enclosed between the markers /* and */, may be written anywhere within SQL statements where a white-space is permitted, except between the keywords EXEC and SQL and within string constants. The comment may replace the white-space, for example: 

 EXEC SQL DELETE/* all rows */FROM countries;

Special Characters

The delimiters in SQL are single quotation marks ' for string constants and double quotation marks " " for delimited identifiers. This is contrary to the C string delimiter usage.

A white-space character separates keywords.

Host Variables in C/C++

The following sections discuss declarations, SQL data type correspondence and value assignments.

Declarations

Host variables used in SQL statements must be declared within the SQL DECLARE SECTION, delimited by the statements BEGIN DECLARE SECTION and END DECLARE SECTION.

Variables declared within the SQL DECLARE SECTION must conform to the following rules in order to be recognized by the SQL preprocessor:

When reading any character array host variable, declared as CHAR, VARCHAR, NCHAR and NCHAR VARYING, the contents of the variable must be null terminated. When a host variable declared as CHAR or NCHAR is read, its value is blank padded to the same length as the host variable. When a host variable declared as VARCHAR or NCHAR VARYING is read, no blank padding is performed.

When any type conversion is done when retrieving a value to a fixed length character host variable, i.e. CHAR or NCHAR, the data will be right justified. When type conversion is done when retrieving a value to a variable length character type host variable, i.e. VARCHAR or NCHAR VARYING, the data will be left justified.

A syntax diagram showing the variable declarations recognized by the ESQL/C preprocessor is given below:

where character-declaration is:

and numeric-declaration is:

and lob-declaration is:

The following points should be noted:

SQL Data Type Correspondence

Valid host data types are listed below for each of the data types used in SQL statements.

SQL data type
C variable declaration 
 SMALLINT
 INTEGER
 BIGINT

 short
 int
 long

 DECIMAL
 NUMERIC

 float
 double
 long double

 FLOAT
 REAL
 DOUBLE PRECISION

 float
 double
 long double

 CHARACTER
 VARCHAR
 DATETIME
 INTERVAL
 BINARY
 BINARY VARYING

 char
 varchar 1

 NCHAR
 NCHAR VARYING

 nchar 2
 nchar varying b

 BLOB

 sql type is blob 3

 CLOB

 sql type is clob c
1
The varchar host variable type is recognized by the ESQL/C preprocessor and converted to the char data type in C.

2
The nchar and nchar varying host variable types are recognized by the ESQL/C preprocessor and converted to the wchar_t data type in C.

3
The blob and clob host variable types are recognized by the ESQL/C preprocessor and converted to:
 struct {
    long            hvn_reserved;
    unsigned long   hvn_length;
    char            hvn_data[L];
    } hvn
Where L is the numeric value of the large object length and hvn is the host variable name as specified in the lob-declaration.

Note: Your C compiler may not support all of these possible declarations.

Value Assignments

The general rules for conversion of values between compatible but different data types, see the Mimer SQL Reference Manual, Chapter 5, SQL Syntax Elements, apply to the transfer of data between the database and host variables, with the data type correspondence as given in the table above.

When reading any character array host variable, declared as char or varchar, the contents of the variable must be terminated by a null byte. When a host variable declared as char is read, its value is blank padded to the same length as the host variable. When a host variable declared as varchar is read, no blank padding is performed.

When retrieving a value shorter than the character array host variable (declared as char), the host variable will be padded with blanks (and terminated with a null byte). When retrieving a value to a varchar host variable, the variable will not be blank padded, just terminated by a null byte.

When retrieving binary data into a character array there is no padding or termination of the binary string, so all the character array elements have significance. The character array must, therefore, be declared with exactly the same length as the binary data.

When any type conversion is done when retrieving a value to a character host variable, the data will be right justified. When type conversion is done when retrieving a value to a varchar host variable, the data will be left justified.

Example: 
 CHAR cstr[9];
 VARCHAR vstr[9];
 


   retrieving the value 'abc ' will give the following result:


 cstr = 'abc     ' /* blankpadded to eight characters */
 vstr = 'abc '     /* the same length as the value */
 


   retrieving the value 123, the values will be as:


 cstr = '     123' /* right justified */
 vstr = '123'      /* left justified */

See the Mimer SQL Reference Manual, Chapter 5, Characters, for a further discussion of different character string assignments.

Preprocessor Output Format

Output from the ESQL/C preprocessor retains SQL statements from the original source code as comments. Comments on the same line as SQL statements are retained as 'comments within comments', marked by the delimiters /+ and +/.

The preprocessed code is structured to reflect the structuring of the original source code.

The use of the #line directive will ensure that any information from the C compiler will correctly reference line numbers in the original source code. It will also help a debugger correctly coordinate display of source lines in the original source file and the generated C file. Refer to information on running ESQL for the platform you are using for details on how to get #line directives.

Scope Rules

Host variables follow the same scope rules as ordinary variables in C. SQL descriptor names, cursor names and statement names must be unique within the compilation unit. A compilation unit for C is the same as a file (including included files).


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