A Rexx interface to SQL databases

Version 2.6

16 September 2012

SQLVARIABLE(variable name[,variable value])

The following variables are available in all implementations:

• VERSION (readonly) the version of Rexx/SQL, consisting of:
  • package name - usually REXXSQL
    
  • Rexx/SQL version - numerical version; eg. 1.0
    
  • Rexx/SQL date - Rexx standard date format; eg. 10 Jun 1995
    
  • OS platform - current operating system
    
  • database platform - type of the current database
    

  eg. REXXSQL 1.0 10 Jun 1995 OS/2 ORACLE

• DEBUG (setable) level of debugging requested.
  • 0 - no debugging information displayed (defualt)
    
  • 1 - Rexx variables displayed as set
    Equivalent to -v command line flag.
  • 2 - function entry/exit information displayed
    Equivalent to -d command line flag.
  • 3 - both level 1 and 2 debugging information displayed
    Equivalent to -dv command line flags.

• ROWLIMIT (setable)
  this is used to limit the number of rows fetched by a SELECT statement passed to SQLCOMMAND. A value of zero indicates no limit. The default value is zero.

• LONGLIMIT (setable)
  this is used to limit the number of bytes retrieved by a SELECT statement that returns a long datatype. The default value is 32768.

• SAVESQL (setable)
  this is used to indicate if the text of the last SQL statement is to be saved. If this variable is set to 1, then SQLCA.SQLTEXT will have the value of the last SQL statement; if set to 0 SQLCA.SQLTEXT will equal "". The default for this variable is 1.

• AUTOCOMMIT (setable)
  this is used to set AUTOCOMMIT ON or OFF. With AUTOCOMMIT ON, each statement is automatically commited to the database; hence the duration of a transaction is limited to a single statement. With AUTOCOMMIT OFF (the default), a transaction lasts until an explicit end to the transaction is made (calling SQLCOMMIT or SQLROLLBACK) or by an implicit commit (eg, in Oracle, DDL statements cause an implicit commit of the transaction. A value of 1 turns AUTOCOMMIT ON; zero turns it OFF. This variable is ignored by those databases that do not provide transaction processing. The setting of AUTOCOMMIT can be changed anytime during a connection.

• IGNORETRUNCATE (setable)
  this is used to determine what action is to occur when a column value is truncated. The default action; ie IGNORETRUNCATE OFF, will result in an error message and the Rexx/SQL function will fail. With IGNORETRUNCATE ON, the data will be truncated but no error will result. A value of 1 turns IGNORETRUNCATE ON; a value of 0 turns IGNORETRUNCATE off.

• NULLSTRINGOUT (setable)
  this is used to enable the user to specify the string that is returned for column values that are NULL. By default, an empty string is returned. This does not enable the differentiation between a NULL column value and a column that has an empty string; "" as its value. The length of this string is limited to 30 characters.

• NULLSTRINGIN (setable)
  this is used to enable the user to specify the string that represents a null column value in bind variables. By default, whenever an empty string; "" is passed as the value of a bind variable, Rexx/SQL will convert this to a NULL column value. The default will not allow differentiation between a NULL column value and an empty string, hence it would be a good idea to define this variable whenever you envisage supplying NULL values as bind variables.

• SUPPORTSPLACEMARKERS (readonly)
  this returns 1 if the database supports placemarkers in a SQL statement. A value of 0 indicates the database does not support placemarkers.

• STANDARDPLACEMARKERS (setable)
  this is used to enable the specification of ? as a placemarker in a SQL statement on those databases that support placemarkers other than ?. Specifying a variable value of 1, enables this feature; a value of 0 disables it.

• SUPPORTSDMLROWCOUNT (readonly)
  this returns 1 if the database can respond with the number of rows affected by a DML statement; ie DELETE, UPDATE and INSERT. A value of 0 indicates the database cannot determine the number of rows affected, and will always return 0.

Arguments:

variable name

The name of the variable who's value is to be set or retrieved.
The names of variables may be implementation dependant.

variable name

The name of the variable who's value is to be retrieved.

with variable name specified:

zero if a valid variable name specified and it is able to be set;

a negative number if the variable name is invalid or the variable name is not able to be set.

with variable value NOT specified:

the current value of the variable or a negative number if the variable name is invalid.