BYTE and TEXT

The only default value valid for a BYTE or TEXT variable is NULL. The following example defines a TEXT global variable that is called l_blob:

CREATE PROCEDURE use_text()
   DEFINE i INT;
   DEFINE GLOBAL l_blob REFERENCES TEXT DEFAULT NULL;
   ...
END PROCEDURE 

Here the REFERENCES keyword is required, because the DEFINE statement cannot declare a BYTE or TEXT data type directly; the l_blob variable is a pointer to a TEXT value that is stored in the global environment.