Name

GET DESCRIPTOR — get information from an SQL descriptor area

Synopsis

GET DESCRIPTOR descriptor_name :cvariable = descriptor_header_item [, ... ]
GET DESCRIPTOR descriptor_name VALUE column_number :cvariable = descriptor_item [, ... ]

Examples

An example to retrieve the number of columns in a result set:

EXEC SQL GET DESCRIPTOR d :d_count = COUNT;

An example to retrieve a data length in the first column:

EXEC SQL GET DESCRIPTOR d VALUE 1 :d_returned_octet_length = RETURNED_OCTET_LENGTH;

An example to retrieve the data body of the second column as a string:

EXEC SQL GET DESCRIPTOR d VALUE 2 :d_data = DATA;

Here is an example for a whole procedure of executing SELECT current_database(); and showing the number of columns, the column data length, and the column data:

int
main(void)
{
EXEC SQL BEGIN DECLARE SECTION;
    int  d_count;
    char d_data[1024];
    int  d_returned_octet_length;
EXEC SQL END DECLARE SECTION;

    EXEC SQL CONNECT TO testdb AS con1 USER testuser;
    EXEC SQL ALLOCATE DESCRIPTOR d;

    /* Declare, open a cursor, and assign a descriptor to the cursor  */
    EXEC SQL DECLARE cur CURSOR FOR SELECT current_database();
    EXEC SQL OPEN cur;
    EXEC SQL FETCH NEXT FROM cur INTO SQL DESCRIPTOR d;

    /* Get a number of total columns */
    EXEC SQL GET DESCRIPTOR d :d_count = COUNT;
    printf("d_count                 = %d\n", d_count);

    /* Get length of a returned column */
    EXEC SQL GET DESCRIPTOR d VALUE 1 :d_returned_octet_length = RETURNED_OCTET_LENGTH;
    printf("d_returned_octet_length = %d\n", d_returned_octet_length);

    /* Fetch the returned column as a string */
    EXEC SQL GET DESCRIPTOR d VALUE 1 :d_data = DATA;
    printf("d_data                  = %s\n", d_data);

    /* Closing */
    EXEC SQL CLOSE cur;
    EXEC SQL COMMIT;

    EXEC SQL DEALLOCATE DESCRIPTOR d;
    EXEC SQL DISCONNECT ALL;

    return 0;
}

When the example is executed, the result will look like this:

d_count                 = 1
d_returned_octet_length = 6
d_data                  = testdb