ASA Programming Guide
  Embedded SQL Programming
    Introduction

Structure of embedded SQL programs

SQL statements are placed (embedded) within regular C or C++ code. All embedded SQL statements start with the words EXEC SQL and end with a semicolon (;). Normal C language comments are allowed in the middle of embedded SQL statements.

Every C program using embedded SQL must contain the following statement before any other embedded SQL statements in the source file.

EXEC SQL INCLUDE SQLCA;

The first embedded SQL statement executed by the C program must be a CONNECT statement. The CONNECT statement is used to establish a connection with the database server and to specify the user ID that is used for authorizing all statements executed during the connection.

The CONNECT statement must be the first embedded SQL statement executed. Some embedded SQL commands do not generate any C code, or do not involve communication with the database. These commands are thus allowed before the CONNECT statement. Most notable are the INCLUDE statement and the WHENEVER statement for specifying error processing.