Use the configuration variable DEFAULT_HOST to establish Informix as your file system:
DEFAULT_HOST informix
Next, select the particular Informix database to be accessed by your COBOL application. Identify this database to the runtime system via the DATABASE configuration variable:
DATABASE database-name
The database you choose might be one that has been in use at the site for some time and already contains data, or it might be a new, blank database that has just been created and named.
The Acu4GL product for Informix allows you to create a file with an OPEN OUTPUT statement, just as you can create Vision indexed files. The Informix equivalent of a Vision file is a table, not a database. You need to have an existing database for your Informix tables, just as you must have an existing directory for Vision files.
To create a new, blank database, use the tools available from Informix.