DB2 Server for VSE & VM: Application Programming

Audience and Purpose of This Book

This book is for application programmers writing programs in assembler language, C, COBOL, ¹ FORTRAN, or PL/I. Throughout the book, the term host languages will often be used to refer to any or all of these particular languages.

This book assumes that you can write programs in one of these host languages for a Virtual Storage Extended/Enterprise Systems Architecture (VSE/ESA) operating system, or a Virtual Machine/Enterprise Systems Architecture (VM/ESA) environment. You may also find it useful to know how to use CICS^(R) and ICCF (or equivalent products) for a VSE/ESA system, and the conversational monitor system (CMS) for VM/ESA system.

The purpose of the book is to explain how to write application programs that use the Structured Query Language (SQL) to access data stored in DATABASE 2 Server for Virtual Machine/Enterprise Systems Architecture (DB2 Server for VM) and in DATABASE 2 Server for Virtual Storage Extended/Enterprise Systems Architecture (DB2 Server for VSE) tables. To achieve its purpose, the book:

• Introduces basic concepts
• Provides in-depth discussion of complex areas
• Offers tips of what to do and what not to do
• Focuses more on the Data Manipulation Language of SQL than on the Data Definition Language or the Data Control Language. (The details of the latter two components of SQL are of greater interest to the database administrator than to the application programmer.)
• Describes the host language interfaces and the preprocessor process
• Supplements the material with examples
• Acts as a reference pointer to the appropriate chapters of the DB2 Server for VSE & VM SQL Reference manual for details on such technical facts as naming conventions, rules, and syntax.

The REXX Interface to the DB2 Server for VM product (DB2 Server RXSQL) is a separately priced feature of this product. For information on this interface, see the DB2 REXX SQL for VM/ESA Installation and Reference manual.

Programmers writing in APL2 should refer to the APL2 Programming: Using Structured Query Language manual.

¹

Throughout this book, COBOL is used to represent either OS/VS COBOL, VS COBOL II, IBM COBOL for MVS and VM, or IBM COBOL for VSE; except where noted otherwise.