Processing format results

Normally, format information for regular row and compute row result sets is only available while the application is processing the result set. At that time, the application can call ct_res_info to retrieve the number of items in the result set, ct_describe to get a description of each item, and ct_compute_info to get compute information.

This mechanism works well for most applications. Some applications, however, need to be able to get format information for a result set before they process the result set. An example of this type of application is a gateway application that repackages Adaptive Server Enterprise results before sending them on to a non-Sybase client.

Client-Library makes advance format information available to an application in the form of format results. There are two types of format results: regular row format results and compute row format results.

Format result sets contain no fetchable results. Instead, an application can call ct_res_info, ct_describe, and ct_compute_info to retrieve format information after ct_results indicates format results.

To receive format results, an application must set the Client-Library CS_EXPOSE_FMTS property to CS_TRUE.

An application can call ct_describe and ct_compute_info to retrieve format information.

A gateway application might use a program structure similar to the following one to process format results:

 case CS_ROWFMT_RESULT
     ct_res_info(CS_NUMDATA) to get the number of columns
     for each column:
         ct_describe to get a column description
         send the information on to the gateway client
     end for
 end case
 
 case CS_COMPUTEFMT_RESULT
     ct_res_info to get the number of columns
     for each column:
         ct_describe to get a column description
         (if required: 
             ct_compute_info for compute information
         end if required)
         send the information on to the gateway client
     end for
 end case