SQL Character Strings
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Within a DSQL application, a SQL statement can come from different sources. It can come directly from a user who enters a statement at a prompt, as does isql. Or it can be generated by the application in response to user interaction. Whatever the source of the SQL statement it must be represented as a SQL statement string, a character string that is passed to DSQL for processing.
Because SQL statement strings are C character strings that are processed directly by DSQL, they cannot begin with the EXEC SQL prefix or end with a semicolon (;). The semicolon is, of course, the appropriate terminator for the C string declaration itself. For example, the following host-language variable declaration is a valid SQL statement string:
char *str = "DELETE FROM CUSTOMER WHERE CUST_NO = 256";