To retrieve rows from a database, you execute a select statement using SQLExecute or SQLExecDirect. This opens a cursor on the statement. Then, use SQLFetch or SQLFetchScroll with SQL_FETCH_NEXT option to fetch rows through the cursor. When an application frees the statement using SQLFreeStmt with SQL_CLOSE option, it closes the cursor.
To fetch values from a cursor, your application can use either SQLBindCol or SQLGetData. If you use SQLBindCol, values are automatically retrieved on each fetch. If you use SQLGetData, you must call it for each column after each fetch.
SQLGetData is used to fetch values in pieces for columns such as LONG VARCHAR or LONG BINARY. As an alternative, you can set the SQL_ATTR_MAX_LENGTH statement attribute to a value large enough to hold the entire value for the column. The default value for SQL_ATTR_MAX_LENGTH is 32KB.
The following code fragment from the simple sample opens a cursor on a query and retrieves data through the cursor. Error checking has been omitted to make the example easier to read.
SQLExecDirect( stmt, "select au_fname from authors ", SQL_NTS ) ;
retcode = SQLBindCol( stmt, 1, SQL_C_CHAR, aufName,
sizeof(aufName), &aufNameLen);
while(retcode == SQL_SUCCESS
|| retcode == SQL_SUCCESS_WITH_INFO){
retcode = SQLFetch( stmt );
}
