Fixed-length Binary Strings

Host Variable Formats

OpenESQL

03 bin-field1      PIC X(5).
03 bin-field2      SQL TYPE IS BINARY(200).

• SQL BINARY, VARBINARY and IMAGE data are represented in COBOL as PIC X (n) fields.
• OpenESQL does not perform data conversion.
• When data is fetched from the database, if the host-variable field is smaller than the amount of data fetched, the data is truncated and the SQLWARN1 field in the SQLCA data structure is set to W. If the host-variable field is larger than the amount of data, the field is padded with null (x"00") bytes.
• Any of the following enable you to insert data into BINARY, VARBINARY or LONG-VARBINARY columns:
  • Use dynamic SQL statements
  • Compile your application with the ALLOWNULLCHAR directive
  • Use SQL TYPE host variables
  • Use .NET Byte host variables
• OpenESQL native support is limited to handling 65000 bytes.

• If you use PIC X host variables, compile your application with the ALLOWNULLCHAR directive to prevent the truncation of transferred data to or from the host variable if a null (x"00") is encountered.
• The bin-field2 format uses the BINARY SQL TYPE.

OpenESQL .NET Managed Runtime

In addition to the definitions valid for all databases and for OpenESQL, the following definition is also valid for the OpenESQL .NET Managed Runtime:

01 bin-field3      type System.Byte[].  
01 bin-field4      type System.Byte occurs 200 times.

OpenESQL .NET Managed Runtime applications have no byte limit.

DB2 ECM

03 bin-field1      PIC X(5).

• Use CHAR FOR BIT DATA to represent BINARY.
• Use VARCHAR(n) FOR BIT DATA to represent VARBINARY.
• Use LONG VARCHAR FOR BIT DATA to represent LONG-VARBINARY.
• The IBM ODBC driver returns the BINARY, VARBINARY and LONG VARBINARY data types instead of the IBM equivalent.
• The IMAGE data type can be represented by BLOB.
• DB2 uses LOBs (Character Large Object, Binary Large Object or Graphical Large Object) to define very large columns (2 Gigabytes maximum). You can use static SQL with these data types.