dbh->syb_isdead() returns a true or false representation of the state of the connection. A false return value may indicate a specific class or errors on the connection, or that the connection has failed.
$sth->syb_describe() returns an array that includes the description of each output column of the current result set. Each element of the array is a reference to a hash that describes the column.
You can set the description fields such as NAME, TYPE, SYBTYPE, SYBMAXLENGTH, MAXLENGTH, SCALE, PRECISION, and STATUS, as shown in this example:
$sth = $dbh->prepare("select name, uid from sysusers"); $sth->execute; my @description = $sth->syb_describe; print "$description[0]->{NAME}\n"; # prints name print "$description[0]->{MAXLENGTH}\n"; # prints 30 etc, etc. .... while(my $row = $sth->fetch) { .... }
See the Open Client documentation.