Data types for application programs
The data and converter types indicate to IMS™ and the IMS Universal JDBC driver how the application will view and store the data in a database.
When one of the data type options is selected from the list, a data type converter transforms the field data returned by IMS from the binary data type that IMS stores the physical data in to the data type specified.
For each data type specification, you can select the converter type, or you select USER from the converter type list to provide your own custom converter type.
When specifying a data type, you must ensure that the byte length of the field supports the data type. Some data types require a specific field length. For example, if you specify LONG, you must define the length (BYTES or MAXBYTES) of the field as 8.
If no data type is specified, the default data type returned to an application program is determined by the value of the fill or mask data type (TYPE) field. If C (Character) is specified or defaulted to, the default data type is CHAR. For all other specifications of the fill or mask data type (TYPE) field, the default application data type is BINARY.
Certain options for data type and converter type are only valid when used in a specific pairing. When you specify a value for data type that requires a specific converter type, the converter type is selected automatically. If you specify one of the values that require a specific data type for the converter type, it overrides any previous selection for data type that you made.
You can define additional characteristics of your data type selections, such as the character encoding, date format, signed decimal, and virtual decimal data, by specifying additional values within the wizard.