If a host variable declared to EQUEL has the same name as a column, table, or form object in a table, you must precede the column name with a number sign (#) (dereference it). Dereferencing tells the EQUEL preprocessor to treat the flagged item as a column (or table or form object) name, not a host variable.

For example, if table "employee" has a column named "salary", and the your application has a variable also named "salary", you must use the following retrieve statement to read data from the column into the host variable of the same name: