Hello dbi-users, We've been talking on the POOP-group list about the need to programmatically determine the default column values for a given table. This is essential for creating database-mapped objects without actually creating the row; you'd want the new object to be populated according to database defaults. Packages such as Class::DBI and Alzabo could make good use of this information.
Obviously, the methods for getting column defaults vary among databases - in Oracle via ALL_TAB_COLUMNS, in mysql via "describe <table>", etc. If this were a DBI method, e.g. $dbh->get_column_defaults($table_name), individual DBD classes could implement or not implement the solution. I'd be happy to write and submit the code for Oracle. Any chance of introducing a new DBI method for this, or is there already a similar proposal in progress? Could not find anything in the list archives, although searching for 'default' gives admittedly noisy results. :) Cheers Jon
