This allows programmers to embed SQL statements in programs written in any number of languages such as C/C++, COBOL and Fortran.
This differs from SQL-derived programming languages that don't go through discrete preprocessors, such as PL/SQL and T-SQL.
The SQL standards committee defined the embedded SQL standard in two steps: a formalism called Module Language was defined, then the embedded SQL standard was derived from Module Language.
A popular host language is C. Host language C and embedded SQL, for example, is called Pro*C in Oracle and Sybase database management systems, ESQL/C in Informix, and ECPG in the PostgreSQL database management system.
[2] IBM Db2 for Linux, UNIX and Windows supports embedded SQL for C, C++, Java, COBOL, FORTRAN and REXX although support for FORTRAN and REXX has been deprecated.