Welcome
Extending Informix®
Beyond standard relational database objects, HCL Informix® can be extended to handle specialized data types, access methods, routines, and other objects. Informix includes many built-in extensions that are fully integrated in the database server. Informix also provides modules, which are packages of extended database objects for a particular purpose and that are installed separately from the database server. Alternatively, you can create your own user-defined objects for Informix.
Creating extensions
You can create user-defined data types, routines, access methods, and other database objects to suit your needs. You can use application programming interfaces to write user-defined routines and applications that access data in Informix® databases.
Developers Kit
The Developers Kit (DBDK) guides contain information about the tools you can use to develop and package modules, which extend the functionality of HCL Informix® databases.
Developers Kit User's Guide
The HCL Informix® Developers Kit User's Guide describes how to use tools to develop and package modules.
Programming module routines in C
This section contains information to help you edit and compile C language source code generated by .
Generated code
Tracing and error handling
BladeSmith adds tracing and error handling code throughout the generated source code if the tracing option is set to True when you generate source code in BladeSmith.
Enabling tracing in a module
After you generate code with tracing and compile your code, enable tracing in your module.

HCL Informix® V15.0.0 documentation
Welcome to the documentation for HCL Informix® 15.0.0 and related client tools and products.
Product overview
HCL Informix® is a fast and scalable database server that manages traditional relational, object-relational, and dimensional databases. Its small footprint and self-managing capabilities are suited to embedded data-management solutions.
Installing
These topics describe how to install HCL Informix® database servers, client products, and modules.
Administering
In addition to administering the database server, you can tune performance, replicate data, and archive data.
Migrating and upgrading
You can upgrade to the 15.0.0 release of HCL Informix® or migrate from other database servers to Informix. Upgrading is an in-place migration method that uses your existing hardware and operating system software. Some changes to the Informix database server can affect upgrading from a previous release.
Client APIs and tools
You can use the HCL Informix® implementation of client APIs to develop applications for Informix database servers.
Embedding Informix®
When you embed HCL Informix®, you can use enterprise-class high-availability and high performance with embeddability features such as easy programmability, a small disk and memory footprint, and silent deployment.
Extending Informix®
Beyond standard relational database objects, HCL Informix® can be extended to handle specialized data types, access methods, routines, and other objects. Informix includes many built-in extensions that are fully integrated in the database server. Informix also provides modules, which are packages of extended database objects for a particular purpose and that are installed separately from the database server. Alternatively, you can create your own user-defined objects for Informix.
- Informix® extensions and modules
  These topics describe how to use built-in database extensions and separately installed modules.
- Creating extensions
  You can create user-defined data types, routines, access methods, and other database objects to suit your needs. You can use application programming interfaces to write user-defined routines and applications that access data in Informix® databases.
  - Programmer's Guide
    The HCL® Informix® DataBlade® API Programmer's Guide describes information about the , the C-language application programming interface (API) provided with HCL Informix.
  - Function Reference
    The IBM® Informix® DataBlade® API Function Reference describes the functions and the subset of functions that the supports.
  - Developers Kit
    The Developers Kit (DBDK) guides contain information about the tools you can use to develop and package modules, which extend the functionality of HCL Informix® databases.
    - Module Development Overview
      The HCL Informix® module overview serves as an overview of the HCL Informix module development process.
    - Developers Kit User's Guide
      The HCL Informix® Developers Kit User's Guide describes how to use tools to develop and package modules.
      - Getting started with module development
        This section provides an overview of module development and describes the resources and tools the HCL Informix® database server provides to facilitate development.
      - Design modules
        This section describes the module SQL design issues.
      - Programming guidelines
        Use this section to help you when you write the design specification for your module.
      - Create objects by using BladeSmith
        Use BladeSmith to create modules.
      - Programming module routines in C
        This section contains information to help you edit and compile C language source code generated by .
        Prerequisite tasks
        C programming task overview
        Source files generated by BladeSmith
        When you create objects, BladeSmith generates the source files; some file names are prefixed with the name of the module (indicated by project). By default, BladeSmith creates the source files in the src and src\c subdirectories of the directory that contains the BladeSmith project file.
        Generated code
        Identify the source of generated code
        When BladeSmith generates source code for your module, it uses routines and data structures from various libraries.
        Comments in generated code
        BladeSmith adds comments to the code it generates. Each routine begins with a prologue that describes the purpose of the routine, its arguments, and its return value. Comments throughout the code describe variable declarations and the results of generated C statements and routine calls.
        The MI_FPARAM function argument
        BladeSmith adds an extra argument to all routines it generates: a pointer to an MI_FPARAM structure.
        Server connection handle
        BladeSmith calls mi_open() at the beginning of many of the routines it generates. The mi_open() call obtains a database server connection handle, which is a required argument in many calls.
        Tracing and error handling
        BladeSmith adds tracing and error handling code throughout the generated source code if the tracing option is set to True when you generate source code in BladeSmith.
        How tracing works
        Tracing is the process of writing status messages for routines to a file. Use tracing for debugging; tracing can generate a high volume of output, which is not appropriate for production databases. By default, tracing is disabled whenever you start a new database session.
        Add tracing and error handling
        To add tracing and error handling to the generated source code, edit the generated source code file and insert DBDK_TRACE macro calls.
        Enabling tracing in a module
        After you generate code with tracing and compile your code, enable tracing in your module.
        Create a trace class
        Tracing classes are categories of tracing that can be activated independently, allowing you to tune your tracing output to suspected problem areas.
        Create the TraceSet_project() procedure
        The TraceSet_project() procedure (where project is the name of your module project) sets the tracing output file and the trace threshold for a database server session by calling the functions mi_tracefile_set() and mi_tracelevel_set().
        Enabling tracing in a database session
        After you enable tracing in your module, enable tracing for the database session. By default, when you start a database server session, tracing is disabled.
        Standard error messages
        BladeSmith uses a standard set of messages in the code that it generates. These messages are shared by all modules created with BladeSmith and cannot be changed.
        Utility functions generated by BladeSmith
        BladeSmith generates utility functions that it calls from other generated code.
        Edit opaque type support routines in opaque.c
        The following subsections describe the code BladeSmith generates for each routine and modifications you might need to make to the generated code.
        Edit statistics routines in statistics.c
        Edit routines in udr.c
        Compile module code
        This section describes how to compile module code.
      - Create ActiveX value objects
        This section describes how to use the to create ActiveX value objects. This section describes the use of C++ to implement opaque type support routines.
      - The ActiveX value objects
        This section provides information for client application developers who are using ActiveX value objects.
      - Programming modules in Java™
        This section contains information to help you edit and compile Java™ language source code generated by BladeSmith.
      - Debugging and testing modules on UNIX™
        This section describes how to debug and perform functional tests for modules written in C for Informix® on UNIX™.
      - Debugging and testing modules on Windows™
        This section describes how to debug and perform functional tests for modules written in C and C++ for Informix® on Windows™.
      - BladePack
        BladePack creates installation packages for modules and other software products.
      - Appendixes
        This section contains additional reference information.
    - DBDK InfoShelf
      The Developers Kit InfoShelf is designed to help you work with BladeSmith.
  - J/Foundation Developer's Guide
    The HCL® J/Foundation Developer's Guide describes how to write user-defined routines (UDRs) in the Java™ programming language for Informix®.
  - R-Tree Index User's Guide
    The HCL® Informix® R-Tree Index User's Guide describes the HCL Informix R-tree secondary access method and how to access and use its components.
  - User-Defined Routines and Data Types Developer's Guide
    The HCL® Informix® User-Defined Routines and Data Types Developer's Guide describes how to define new data types and enable user-defined routines (UDRs) to extend HCL Informix.
  - Virtual-Table Interface Guide
    The IBM® Informix® Virtual-Table Interface Programmer's Guide explains how to create a primary access method with the Virtual-Table Interface (VTI) so that users have a single SQL interface to HCL Informix tables and to data that does not conform to the storage scheme of HCL Informix.
  - Virtual-Index Interface Guide
    The IBM® Informix® Virtual-Index Interface Programmer's Guide explains how to create a secondary access method with the Virtual-Index Interface (VII) to extend the built-in indexing schemes of HCL Informix typically with a module.
Data warehousing
In addition to designing and implementing Informix® dimensional databases, you can use tools to create data warehouse applications and optimize your data warehouse queries.
Designing databases
The first step in creating a relational database is to construct a data model, which is a precise, complete definition of the data you want to store. After you prepare your data model, you must implement it as a database and tables. To implement your data model, you first select a data type for each column and then you create a database and tables and populate the tables with data. You can also implement fragmentation strategies and control access to your data.
JSON compatibility
You can use the popular JSON-oriented query language created by MongoDB to interact with data stored in HCL Informix®.
Security
You can secure your Informix® database server and the data that is stored in your Informix databases. You can encrypt data, secure connections, control user privileges and access, and audit data security.
SQL programming
You can use the HCL Informix® implementation of the SQL language to develop applications for Informix database servers.
Troubleshooting HCL Informix®
Several troubleshooting techniques, tools, and resources are available for resolving problems that you encounter in your HCL Informix® database server environment.

Enabling tracing in a module

After you generate code with tracing and compile your code, enable tracing in your module.

About this task

To enable tracing in your module

Procedure

Create a trace class.
Create the TraceSet_project() procedure.

Results

These steps are described in the following sections.