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.
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®.
Opaque user-defined data types
This section describes how to use opaque user-defined data types (UDTs). This section describes the default SQLData interface and how to override the default.
Using the SQLData interface
To implement a complete UDT in Java™ code, you must supply a set of data-formatting methods that convert to and from the various representations of the data type. These methods perform input and output operations for the data type such as converting text input to the internal structure that the database server uses.
Default input/output routines
Because this interface uses Java™, all the SQL I/O support functions are predefined when you register the UDT. You only need to supply the required SQLData implementation.

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.
  - 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®.
    - Concepts
      This section introduces the infrastructure for creating and executing user-defined routines (UDRs) and applications that you write in Java™ to run in the HCL Informix® database server.
    - Prepare for Java™ support
      You must install and configure software before you can write user-defined routines (UDRs) in Java™ code.
    - Configuration parameters
      This section documents the configuration parameters that you need to set to use UDRs written in Java™ code. Set these parameters in the database server configuration file (the onconfig file).
    - Create Java™ user-defined routines
      A user-defined routine (UDR) is a routine that an SQL statement or another UDR can invoke. UDRs written in Java™ code use the server-side implementation of the HCL Informix® JDBC Driver to communicate with the database server.
    - The Informix® JDBC Driver
      All UDRs written in Java™ code can access the database server data through the HCL Informix® JDBC Driver application programming interface (API). This section briefly describes the Informix implementation of the API and the server-side .
    - Opaque user-defined data types
      This section describes how to use opaque user-defined data types (UDTs). This section describes the default SQLData interface and how to override the default.
      - Using the SQLData interface
        To implement a complete UDT in Java™ code, you must supply a set of data-formatting methods that convert to and from the various representations of the data type. These methods perform input and output operations for the data type such as converting text input to the internal structure that the database server uses.
        Default input/output routines
        Because this interface uses Java™, all the SQL I/O support functions are predefined when you register the UDT. You only need to supply the required SQLData implementation.
        SQL definitions for default I/O user-defined routines
        After you register the Java™ UDT with the database server by using the SQL procedure setUDTExtName(), you can create SQL functions and casts for it, using either the default I/O wrapper methods or explicit methods in your Java UDT class.
        Informix® extensions to SQLInput and SQLOutput
        The circle class example
        The circle class example implements a fixed-length opaque data type.
      - Override the default I/O methods
        If the default methods are not sufficient because, for example, you want to include parentheses and other delimiting characters in the text representation, you can explicitly override the defaults with definitions of your own, after you register the Java™ UDT.
      - Limitations to streams
  - 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.

Default input/output routines

Because this interface uses Java™, all the SQL I/O support functions are predefined when you register the UDT. You only need to supply the required SQLData implementation.

HCL Informix® supplies extensions to the Stream arguments of SQLData methods to suit various uses. With these extensions, you can build I/O functions for a new Java™ UDT. All that you must do to implement any of the required function sets is select the Stream type.

Informix® also supplies default Input and Output processing methods in Java™ code that are used to implement all UDT I/O operations. The database server contains these default I/O methods and executes them just like any other Java™ UDR. These methods use information in the SQL UDR definition to select the correct Streams and instantiate the right user-defined type objects at execution time.

The circle class example illustrates the use of the SQLData interface.