General Syntax of EQUEL Statements
All EQUEL statements must be preceded by a pair of number signs:
##EQUEL_statement
The number signs must be the leftmost characters on the line, except in languages that require line numbers. (If you are programming in a language that uses line numbers, see the Embedded QUEL Companion Guide for the correct format.) The EQUEL preprocessor ignores lines that do not begin with "##".
EQUEL statements can be continued across multiple lines; each continuation line must begin with "##". For example:
##retrieve (sal = e.salary, ename = e.empname)
##where e.empnum = 23
To continue a string literal to the next line, precede the continuation line with a backslash () and omit the "##". For example:
##append to employee (empname = "john jones")
EQUEL does not require statement terminators. However, if your host language uses a statement terminator, you can use it to terminate EQUEL statements.
EQUEL comments can appear only on lines that begin with "##". EQUEL comments are delimited by "/*" and "*/". You can also use the host language format to place comments in an EQUEL program.
String literals in EQUEL statements must follow the rules of the host language.