ra_helpfield

Returns information about primary database fields (columns in tables, or input parameters in stored procedures) from the RASD.

Syntax

ra_helpfield article [, version [, field]]

article – The name or object ID of an article (table or procedure) in the primary database. Article names can be qualified with an owner name in the following form:
```
owner.article
```
Owner qualification of article names is optional.
version – A hexadecimal locator value that identifies the version of the specified article.
field – The name or object ID of a field (column or input parameter) in the specified article.

Example 1 –
```
ra_helpfield authors
```
This command returns information about all fields in the current version of the article named authors in the RASD.
Example 2 –
```
ra_helpfield authors, 00000000000210a400003334000700003334000699940000d413c50000000000
```
This command returns information about all fields in version 00000000000210a400003334000700003334000699940000d413c50000000000 of the article named “authors” in the RASD.
Example 3 –
```
ra_helpfield authors, 00000000000210a400003334000700003334000699940000d413c50000000000, au_fname
```
This command returns information about the field named au_fname in version 00000000000210a400003334000700003334000699940000d413c50000000000 of the article named “authors” in the RASD.

The ra_helpfield command returns the following information for fields:
- Field (column or input parameter) object ID
- Field name
- Field type ID
- Field datatype (with precision, length, and scale)
- Field NULL mode
- Field IDENTITY status
- Field primary key status
All field information items are the values returned by the primary database when Replication Agent is initialized with the pdb_xlog init command.
If ra_helpfield is invoked with the article option, it returns information for all fields in the current version of the specified article in the RASD.
If ra_helpfield is invoked with the article and version options, it returns information for all fields in the specified version of the specified article in the RASD.
If ra_helpfield is invoked with the article, version, and field options, it returns information for the specified field in the specified version of the specified article in the RASD.
The ra_helpfield command is valid when Replication Agent is in either Admin, Replicating, or Replication Down state.
No results are returned by ra_helpfield if the RASD has not yet been initialized with the pdb_xlog init command.