If you are looking for a practical DB2 book that focuses on application programming, this is the book for you. Written from the programmer's point of view, it will quickly teach you what you need to know to access and process DB2 data in your COBOL programs using embedded SQL. This second edition has been thoroughly updated and expanded to make it even more valuable to the programmer who is slugging it out on the job. You will learn: the critical DB2 concepts that let you understand how DB2 works; the basic DB2 coding features you will use in every program you write; how to use version 4 enhancements like outer joins and explicit syntax for inner joins; how to work with column functions, scalar functions, and subqueries to manipulate data; how to use error handling techniques and ROLLBACK to protect DB2 data; why program efficiency is vital under DB2... and more.