Using the DEFAULT values and NAMED arguments in procedures

When we define a stored procedure, it also has IN and OUT parameters associated with it. The stored procedures can be invoked from any host language or by command line. To call a stored procedure, we need to provide the procedure name and parameters. Since we need to process the IN and OUT parameter values, we will have to use host language variables. To make this happen, we can use parameter markers.

A parameter marker acts as a place holder in an SQL statement. Normally, parameter markers are identified by question marks (?). DB2 9.7 also provides support for named parameter markers. It means that we can assign names to the parameter markers and refer to them by using these names. We can also assign DEFAULT values for these parameter markers while creating the procedure.