Informix Error -652

Reasons / Common Causes

-652 fires when a local variable's DEFINE includes a DEFAULT clause — per the official guidance, only global variables and routine parameters can have default values; local variables can't.

1. DEFINE var type DEFAULT value used for a local variable, per the official guidance — the direct, only cause.
2. A pattern carried over from parameter or global-variable definitions, which do support DEFAULT, applied to an ordinary local variable where it isn't supported.

Solutions / Resolution

1. Split the definition into a plain DEFINE followed by a LET assignment, per the official guidance's documented correction:

   DEFINE var INT;
   LET var = 10;
   

   instead of DEFINE var INT DEFAULT 10;.
2. If a genuine default-value pattern is needed, use a global variable or a routine parameter instead, per the official guidance, since those are the two contexts that support DEFAULT directly.

Examples

The disallowed attempt

CREATE PROCEDURE process_order()
  DEFINE v_status INT DEFAULT 10;
  ...
END PROCEDURE;
-- -652: local variables don't allow DEFAULT

Corrected

CREATE PROCEDURE process_order()
  DEFINE v_status INT;
  LET v_status = 10;
  ...
END PROCEDURE;

Diagnostic Checks

1. Scan DEFINE statements for a local variable combined with DEFAULT, and split each one into a plain DEFINE plus a separate LET assignment.

Related Errors / Related Topics

• -591 — "Invalid default value for column/variable column-name/variable-name." A related DEFAULT-clause error, about the value's type/length rather than where DEFAULT is allowed at all.
• -653 — "Variables declared as LIKE cannot be global." Another SPL variable-declaration restriction, about LIKE and scope rather than DEFAULT and scope.

Local variables never take DEFAULT — split into a plain DEFINE plus a LET assignment instead.