DB/Assist is visual database programming tool. It allows you to build and manage the SQL database access portion of an ESL application.

Developing the Application

At development time, you can use DB/Assist to do the following:

•Visually create and maintain SQL statements, and combine related statements into SQL Access Modules (SAMs). A SAM is a file that consists of a group of related static SQL statements and ESL variable information for all or part of an ESL application.

•Dynamically run each SQL statement in a SAM, view the result set, and modify the statement if necessary.

•Generate ESL action routines for each valid SQL statement in the SAM

•Compile the generated ESL action routines into  a file that you specify.

•Create the appropriate bind file for the SAM and, if desired, a database access package.

The following shows how DB/Assist interacts with the ESL Compiler (EPARSE.EXE) to develop the database access portion of an ESL application.

Using DB/Assist to Develop Applications

The ESL action routines generated by DB/Assist call commands in the ESL Database dynamic link library (EDB2.DLL). The EDB2 commands give the resulting ESL application static SQL access to IBM DB2 databases.