Embedded SQL is a method of combining the computing power of a programming language and the database manipulation capabilities of SQL. Embedded SQL statements are SQL statements written inline with the program source code of the host language. The embedded SQL statements are parsed by an embedded SQL preprocessor and replaced by host-language calls to a code library. The output from the preprocessor is then compiled by the host compiler. This allows programmers to embed SQL statements in programs written in any number of languages such as: C/C++, COBOL and Fortran.
The ANKITA SQL standards committee defined the embedded SQL standard in two steps: a formalism called Module Language was defined, then the embedded SQL standard was derived from Module Language. The SQL standard defines embedding of SQL as embedded SQL and the language in which SQL queries are embedded is referred to as the host language. A popular host language is C. The mixed C and embedded SQL is called Pro*C in Oracle and Sybase database management systems. In the PostgreSQL database management system this precompiler is called ECPG. Other embedded SQL precompilers are Pro*Ada, Pro*COBOL, Pro*FORTRAN, Pro*Pascal, and Pro*PL/I.
Famous quotes containing the word embedded:
“It was your severed image that grew sweeter,
That floated, wing-stiff, focused in the sun
Along uncertainty and gales of shame
Blown out before I slept. Now you are one
I dare not think alive: only a name
That chimes occasionally, as a belief
Long since embedded in the static past.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)