Extending Informix Dynamic Server 2000 Introduction

This manual describes how to define new data types and enable user-defined routines (UDRs) to extend Informix Dynamic Server 2000. It describes the tasks you must perform to extend operations on data types, to create new casts, to extend operator classes for secondary access methods, to write opaque data types, and to create and register routines.

This manual is written for the following users:

• Database-application programmers
• DataBlade module developers

This manual assumes that you have the following background:

• A working knowledge of your computer, your operating system, and the utilities that your operating system provides
• Experience working with relational databases or exposure to database concepts
• Experience with computer programming

If you have limited experience with relational databases, SQL, or your operating system, refer to the Getting Started manual for a list of supplementary titles.

This manual assumes that you are using Informix Dynamic Server 2000, Version 9.2.

Informix products can support many languages, cultures, and code sets. All culture-specific information is brought together in a single environment, called a Global Language Support (GLS) locale.

This manual assumes that you use the U.S. 8859-1 English locale as the default locale. The default is en_us.8859-1 (ISO 8859-1) on UNIX platforms or en_us.1252 (Microsoft 1252) for Windows NT environments. This locale supports U.S. English format conventions for dates, times, and currency, and also supports the ISO 8859-1 or Microsoft 1252 code set, which includes the ASCII code set plus many 8-bit characters such as é, è, and ñ.

If you plan to use nondefault characters in your data or your identifiers, or if you want to conform to the nondefault collation rules of character data, you need to specify the appropriate nondefault locale.

For instructions on how to specify a nondefault locale, additional syntax, and other considerations related to GLS locales, see the Informix Guide to GLS Functionality.

The DB-Access utility, which is provided with your Informix database server products, includes one or more of the following demonstration databases:

• The stores_demo database illustrates a relational schema with information about a fictitious wholesale sporting-goods distributor. Many examples in Informix manuals are based on the stores_demo database.
• The superstores_demo database illustrates an object-relational schema. The superstores_demo database includes examples of extended data types, type and table inheritance, and user-defined routines.

For information about how to create and populate the demonstration databases, see the DB-Access User's Manual. For descriptions of the databases and their contents, see the Informix Guide to SQL: Reference.

The scripts that you use to install the demonstration databases reside in the $INFORMIXDIR/bin directory on UNIX platforms and in the %INFORMIXDIR%\bin directory in Windows environments.