for Oracle I think it is desc
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan Leffler" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Andy Duncan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: "Loo, Peter # PHX" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2001 1:25 AM
Subject: Re: DESCRIBE $TableName
> Andy Duncan wrote:
>
> > > Can someone please instruct me as to how I can output a DESCRIBEd
value of a
> > > table in DBI?
> >
> > DESCRIBE is a command written especially for SQL*Plus, and is not a
standard
> > SQL command.
>
> Actually, DESCRIBE is a standard part of SQL-92, for use with Dynamic SQL
in
> Embedded SQL.
>
>
> > To get something similar to DESCRIBE in raw SQL, you'll have to
> > write some code which accesses the Oracle data dictionary (which is all
the
> > DESCRIBE program does itself, probably). The following primitive code
might
> > get you started, though it only covers "real" tables. To get something
to
> > cover synonyms and views, you might want to modify and wrap this within
some
> > PL/SQL using DBMS_OUTPUT and add some other stuff to get other objects
other
> > than straight tables:
> >
> > select COLUMN_NAME "Name"
> > ,DECODE(NULLABLE,'Y','','N','NOT NULL') "Null"
> > ,SUBSTR(DECODE(DATA_TYPE,'CHAR',
> > 'CHAR('||TO_CHAR(DATA_LENGTH)||')'
> > ,'VARCHAR2','VARCHAR2('||
> > TO_CHAR(DATA_LENGTH)||')'
> > ,'NUMBER','NUMBER('||
> > TO_CHAR(DATA_PRECISION)||
> > ','||TO_CHAR(DATA_SCALE)||')'
> > ,DATA_TYPE),1,30) "Type"
> > from user_tab_columns
> > where table_name = 'MY_TABLE'
> > order by COLUMN_ID
> > /
> >
> > Once you've wrapped this within some PL/SQL (or created some views?),
you'll
> > then be able to do something in SQL*Plus like:
> >
> > execute my_desc('MY_TABLE');
> >
> > Within DBI, use the special 'func' methods available within DBD::Oracle
> > (documented within the DBD::Oracle distribution), to get the output too.
>
> With DBI, there are standard attributes that contain information from
DESCRIBE
> (not all in one call, but most of it is available); with DBD::Informix,
there are
> non-standard attributes that contain the native Informix version of the
> information from DESCRIBE.
>
> Time to break out the Cheetah book -- TYPE, NULLABLE, NAME, etc.
>
> --
> Jonathan Leffler ([EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED])
> Guardian of DBD::Informix 1.00.PC1 -- see http://www.cpan.org/
> #include <disclaimer.h>
>
>
>
