When using DML statements within a SQL Remote passthrough session with 12.0.1.4314, these DML statements were rejected with SQLCODE -707 ("Statement is not allowed in passthrough mode").

Initially, I was surprised because we have eventually used such DML statements within passthrough mode in older versions without problems (*), and I wondered whether I had noticed a possible limitation in v12 I had not been aware of.

A closer look revealed that the error messaged appeared when two INSERT or UPDATE statements followed each other without a statement delimiter, such as

insert into MyTable values ( 1, 'Value 1')
insert into MyTable values ( 2, 'Value 2')
...
go

Adding a semicolon after each statement fixed the problem easily.

Outside passthrough mode, such DML statements are accepted without delimiters (as long as they remain unambiguous, of course), I guess as T-SQL syntax.

So is that need for a delimiter a known restriction in SQL Remote Passthrough mode?

(*) Aside: One might ask why we use DML statements in a passthrough session and do not simply run them "normally" and let SQL Remote distribute the values. - Well, it's handy when you are about to alter an existing, non-empty table to add a NOT NULL column and want to handle that within one passthrough session, such as

PASSTHROUGH FOR SUBSCRIPTION TO ...;
SETUSER ...;
ALTER TABLE MyTable ADD MyNewColumn INT NULL; -- can't be NOT NULL while empty
UPDATE MyTable SET MyNewColumn = <whatever>;
ALTER TABLE MyTable ALTER MyNewColumn NOT NULL;
...
COMMIT;
PASSTHROUGH STOP;