Declaring Host Variables

Before you can use a host variable in an embedded SQL statement, you must declare it. Host variable declarations should be bracketed by the embedded SQL statements BEGIN DECLARE SECTION and END DECLARE SECTION, for example:

 EXEC SQL
     BEGIN DECLARE SECTION
 END-EXEC
 01 id             pic x(4).
 01 name           pic x(30).
 EXEC SQL
    END DECLARE SECTION
 END-EXEC
    . . .
     display "Type your identification number: "
     accept id.

* The following statement retrieves the name of the
* employee whose ID is the same as the contents of 
* the host variable "id". The name is returned in
* the host variable "name".

     EXEC SQL
         SELECT emp_name INTO :name FROM employees
          WHERE emp_id=:id
     END-EXEC
     display "Hello " name.

Note:

You can use groups of data items as a single host variable. However, a group item cannot be used in a WHERE clause.
OpenESQL trims trailing spaces from character host variables. If the variable consists entirely of spaces, OpenESQL does not trim the first space character because some servers treat a zero length string as NULL.