Programming Guide

This chapter describes the global variables, in alphabetical order, available in Panther's database drivers.

A reference page for each global variable includes:

• A description of the variable.

• A list of related variables and commands.

• An example.

Since some variables store engine-specific values, refer to "Database Drivers" for additional information. For more information on using the global variables as part of your error processing, refer to Chapter 37, "Processing Application Errors," in Application Development Guide.

Variable Overview

The global variables available through Panther's database drivers are automatically defined at initialization. All the global variable names used in the database drivers begin with the characters @dm. Since the character @ is not permitted in user-defined Panther variables, these variables will never conflict with any screen, LDB or JPL variables defined by your application.

These variables and their values are available to JPL commands and to Panther library functions like sm_getfield and sm_fptr.

The variables are automatically maintained by Panther. Before executing a DBMS command, Panther clears the contents of all the DBMS global variables. After executing the command and before returning control to the application, Panther updates the variables to indicate the current status.