Hi, With reference to the rt I created "Support binding of integers so they are returned as IVs" at http://rt.cpan.org/Public/Bug/Display.html?id=49818
I am now at the point where being unable to bind columns to results-sets in DBD::Oracle with a bind type of SQL_INTEGER (or whatever) so they look like integers in Perl is slowing some code of ours down dramatically. We convert a fetchall_arrayref returned structure into JSON with JSON::XS and JSON::XS converts strings to "string" and numbers to a plain number. Our select returns a number of columns which are really integer columns and as the result-set is very large the extra space we use encoding integers as "number" is more than just annoying. JSON::XS appears to know a perl scalar has been used in the context of a number as if we add 0 to the integer columns returned in fetchall_arrayref it encodes them as plain numbers instead of strings like "number" (see the rt for the snippet from JSON::XS which does this). As a result, a workaround we are using now is to loop through the rows adding 0 to all integer columns. I believe DBI allows bind_col to be called without a destination scalar so you can use it to specify the type of the bind e.g., SQL_INTEGER but still call fetchall_arrayref. Does anyone know if it is feasible to make this work with DBD::Oracle and if so do you have some pointers as to how it may be achieved. I am not looking for anyone else to do the work but would like to sound people out about the possibility before I launch into it. Thanks Martin
