The Information Catalog Manager API calls receive input and provide output using parameters and input structures and output structures. The input structures and output structures allow you to provide multiple values of input and receive multiple values of output from the Information Catalog Manager API calls.
Input structures and output structures are self-defining data structures; each structure defines the format and meaning of the data that it passes.
To pass an input structure to an API call, you need to build the input structure and pass a pointer to the beginning of the input structure as an input parameter for the API call. This process is explained in Creating input structures for an API call.
To retrieve information from an output structure, you need to step through the output structure using one or more pointers. This process is explained in Reading an output structure resulting from an API call.
Although the examples in this book are written in C language, you can create and read input and output structures using any programming language.