sybperl-l Archive

From: phil_groce at cmcsmart dot com (Phil Groce)
Subject: ct_describe() and datatypes
Date: Aug 31 1998 3:38PM

I'm writing a routine that returns a dataset with some meta-information
from ct_describe() (particularly type information -- I want to sort string,
numeric and datetime data differently).

ct_describe(), of course, returns an array of hash refs that describe each
column -- I'm a little confused on the number returned as the value of the
{TYPE} key in those hash refs.  I'm having some success comparing them to
the CS_xxx_TYPE constants, but it's recognizing datetime fields as chars --
and I'm not so sure my success here isn't a coincidence (esp. since these
constants are mentioned in the Open Client docs, but not explicitly in my
Sybperl docs).  I had also thought they might reference the systypes table,
but couldn't find a compelling correlation there, either.

My questions:
1.  Am I on the right track with CS_xxx_TYPE?  If so, more clarification is
welcome.
2.  Does sybperl support all the datatypes returned by the Open Client
ct_describe() call?

Any assistance is welcome -- thanks. :)

phil