Number Contained in Indicator Variable | Specification to the Application |
---|---|
A negative number (most commonly -1) | The associated input main variable should be treated as a null. Alternatively, it means the database returned a null for the associated column. |
Zero | The associated input main variable is non-null or that a non-null value was successfully returned with no exception conditions applied. |
A positive number | Truncation has occurred when returning a character or byte string to the associated main variable. This value represents the original length of the string before truncation. |
An indicator variable is defined as a two byte integer (smallint). In PL/I, this is declared as:
DCL identifier FIXED BIN[ARY][(n)];
With this declaration, integer n must be positive, such that 1 ≤ n ≤ 15. If n is not specified, a default of 15 is used.