SQL Programming Manual for TAL

Host Variables and Parameters

HP NonStop SQL Programming Manual for TAL—527887-001

2-5

Overriding Default Data Types

Each TAL data type has a default SQL data type used by the SQL compiler. In most

cases, you can define your host variables to match the SQL data types shown in

Table 2-1 on page 2-3. Sometimes, however, you might want to use another data type.

Some TAL data types allow you to override the default type by specifying an override

SQL data type as an attribute of the host variable. The syntax to override a data type

is:

TAL-type

is the TAL data type plus any indirection symbol. For example:

INT

INT(32)

INT .

INT .EXT

hostvar-name

is the name of the host variable.

array-bounds

is the bounds of an array. For example, in the declaration:

INT numbers[0:19];

[0:19] is the bounds.

override-SQL-type

is the SQL data type that will override the default type that NonStop SQL normally

uses for TAL-type. Specify override-SQL-type after the host variable and any array

bounds but before initialization or address equivalence takes place.

Also, when you use a host variable in an SQL statement, you can override character

data types by using the:

•

TYPE AS clause to specify that the character string should be interpreted as a

date-time value. The TYPE AS clause is described under Using Date-Time and

INTERVAL Data Types as Host Variables on page 2-15.

•

SETSCALE function to indicate that an integer host variable is to be interpreted as

having scale. SETSCALE is described under Using Scaled Numeric Data Items as

Host Variables on page 2-12.

Table 2-2 shows how NonStop SQL interprets TAL data types, and the override data

types you can specify.

TAL-type hostvar-name [array-bounds] [/ override-SQL-type/]