We are running version 7 DB2 for z/os.
Currently we are making some changes to some dynamic SQL COBOL-DB2 modules; and I was wondering if there are things we should be doing to make them 'immune' to the changes happening in version 8.

In particular, I read that in version 8, the DB2 column-names are increasing from 18 to 30 characters. This was of concern to me, because we have processes that read the SYSIBM.SYSCOLUMNS table and place the column names in a host-variable defined at PIC X(18). The processes use the SYSCOLUMNS table - as well as the SQLDA to get meta-data needed to build the dynamic SQL statements.

I did rig a test under version 7, where I changed that host variable to
PIC X(17) and despite this short-coming in the host-variable, the process did compile, bind, and execute accurately - that is as long, as we did not encounter a column whose name was 18 characters.

So my question is, based on all that is changing in the version 8 SYSIBM tables and/or SQLDA, - and assuming that we "never" created DB2 objects whose name exceeded the current limits set by version 7, what should we be doing in our version 7 development for modules that read the SYSIBM tables and/or SQLDA, to make the modules immune to the changes happening in version 8.