William Thompson
Global Moderator
Joined: 18 Nov 2006
Posts: 3156
Location: Tucson AZ
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Just looking at the DB2 Universal Database for OS/390 and z/OS Utility Guide and Reference Version 7 Publication No. SC26-9945-07, I can imagine that the external refers to the fack that the data will be extracted in human readable form.
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INTEGER
Specifies that the output field is a four byte binary integer (a negative number is in two?s complement notation).
If the original data type is DECIMAL, or FLOAT (either four byte or eight byte format), an error will occur when the original data is greater than 2 147 483 647 or less than -2 147 483 648.
An INTEGER output field requires four bytes and the length option is not available.
INTEGER EXTERNAL
Specifies that the output field contains a character string representing an integer number.
(length)
The optional length parameter indicates the size of the output data in bytes, including a space for the sign character. When the length is given and the character notation does not fit in the space, an error will occur. If the output field size is not specified, the default is 11 characters (including a space for the sign).
If the value is negative, a minus sign precedes the numeric digits. If the output field size is larger than the length of the data, the output data is left justified and blanks will be padded on the right.
If the source data type is DECIMAL, or FLOAT (either four byte or eight byte format), an error will occur when the original data is greater than 2 147 483 647 or less than -2 147 483 648. |
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