CS_EXPOSE_FMTS determines whether or not Client-Library exposes format result sets.
A format result set contains format information for the result set with which it is associated. Format information includes the number of items in the result set and a description of each item. There are two types of format result sets:
CS_ROWFMT_RESULT – contains format information for a regular row result set.
CS_COMPUTEFMT_RESULT – contains format information for a compute row result set.
All format result sets generated by a command precede the regular row and compute row result sets generated by the command.
If format result sets are not exposed, an application only retrieves format information while it is processing a result set. For example, after ct_results returns with a result_type of CS_ROW_RESULT, the application calls ct_res_info to determine the number of columns in the result set, ct_describe to get a description of each column, and so on.
Exposing format result sets allows an application to retrieve format information before processing a result set.
Exposing format result sets is useful in gateway applications that need to repackage Adaptive Server results before sending them on to a foreign client.
An application exposes format result sets by setting the CS_EXPOSE_FMTS property to CS_TRUE.
For more information about format results, see “Format results”.
