The indicator must be declared as a variable in the embedding programming language. It must be possible to assign at least four-digit integers to this variable.
A distinction is made between output parameters and input parameters:
- Output parameters
: parameters that are to receive values retrieved from the database system.
- An indicator parameter with the value 0 indicates that the transferred value is not a NULL value and that the parameter value is the transferred value.
- An indicator with the value –1 indicates that the parameter value is the NULL value.
- Alphanumeric output parameters: an indicator with a value greater than 0 indicates that the assigned character string was too long and was truncated as a result. The indicator indicates the untruncated length of the original output column.
- Numeric output parameters: an indicator with a value greater than 0 indicates that the assigned value has too many significant digits and decimal places have been truncated. The indicator indicates the number of digits in the original value.
- With numeric output parameters, an indicator with the value -2 indicates that the parameter value is the