You use host variables to provide communication between C and SQL statements and to receive data from a database or to insert data into a database. When you specify a host variable in an SQL statement, precede the host variable name with a colon (:). In C statements, you do not need the colon, as shown:
EXEC SQL SELECT column1 INTO :host_variable1 FROM =table
WHERE column1 > :host_variable2;
strcpy(new_name, host_variable1);
