sa_describe_query system procedure

Describes the result set for a query with one row describing each output column of the query.

Syntax

sa_describe_query( 
query 
[, add_keys ] 
)

Arguments

query Use this LONG VARCHAR parameter to specify the text of the SQL statement being described.
add_keys Use this optional BIT parameter to specify whether to determine a set of columns that uniquely identify rows in the result set for the query being described. The default is 0; the database server does not attempt to identify the columns. See the Remarks section below for a full explanation of this parameter.

Result Set

Column name	Data type	Description
column_number	INTEGER	The ordinal position of the column described by this row, starting at 1.
name	VARCHAR(128)	The name of the column.
domain_id	SMALLINT	The data type of the column. See SYSDOMAIN system view.
domain_name	VARCHAR(128)	The data type name. See SYSDOMAIN system view.
domain_name_with_size	VARCHAR(160)	The data type name, including size and precision (as used in CREATE TABLE or CAST functions).
width	INTEGER	The length of a string parameter, the precision of a numeric parameter, or the number of bytes of storage for any other data type.
scale	INTEGER	The number of digits after the decimal point for numeric data type columns, and zero for all other data types.
declared_width	INTEGER	The length of a string parameter, the precision of a numeric parameter, or the number of bytes of storage for any other data type.
user_type_id	SMALLINT	The type_id of the user-defined data type if there is one, otherwise NULL. See SYSUSERTYPE system view.
user_type_name	VARCHAR(128)	The name of the user-defined data type if there is one, otherwise NULL. See SYSUSERTYPE system view.
correlation_name	VARCHAR(128)	The correlation name associated with the expression if one is available, otherwise NULL.
base_table_id	UNSIGNED INTEGER	The table_id if the expression is a field, otherwise NULL. See SYSTAB system view.
base_column_id	UNSIGNED INTEGER	The column_id if the expression is a field, otherwise NULL. See SYSTABCOL system view.
base_owner_name	VARCHAR(128)	The owner name if the expression is a field, otherwise NULL. See SYSUSER system view.
base_table_name	VARCHAR(128)	The table name if the expression is a field, otherwise NULL.
base_column_name	VARCHAR(128)	The column name if the expression is a field, otherwise NULL.
nulls_allowed	BIT	An indicator that is 1 if the expression can be NULL, otherwise 0.
is_autoincrement	BIT	An indicator that is 1 if the expression is a column declared to be autoincrement, otherwise 0.
is_key_column	BIT	An indicator that is 1 if the expression is part of a key for the result set, otherwise 0. See the Remarks section below for more information.
is_added_key_column	BIT	An indicator that is 1 if the expression is an added key column, otherwise 0. See the Remarks section below for more information.

Remarks

The sa_describe_query procedure provides an API-independent mechanism to describe the name and type information for the expressions in the result set of a query.

When 1 is specified for add_keys, the sa_describe_query procedure attempts to find a set of columns from the objects being queried that, when combined, can be used as a key to uniquely identify rows in result set of the query being described. The key takes the form of one or more columns from the objects being queried, and may include columns that are not explicitly referenced in the query. If the optimizer finds a key, the column or columns used in the key are identified in the results by an is_key_column value of 1. If no key is found, an error is returned.

For any column that is included in the key but that is not explicitly referenced in the query, the is_added_key_column value is set to 1 to indicate that the column has been added to the results for the procedure; otherwise, the value of is_added_key_column is 0.

If you do not specify add_keys, or you specify a value of 0, the optimizer does not attempt to find a key for the result set, and the is_key_column and is_added_key_column columns contain NULL.

The declared_width and width values both describe the size of a column. The declared_width describes the size of the column as defined by the CREATE TABLE statement or by the query, while the width value gives the size of the field when fetched to the client. The client representation of a type may be different from the database server. For example, date and time types are converted to strings if the return_date_time_as_string option is on. For strings, fields declared with character-length semantics have a declared_width value that matches the CREATE TABLE size, while the width value gives the maximum number of bytes needed to store the returned string. For example:

Declaration	width	declared_width
CHAR(10)	10	10
CHAR(10 CHAR)	40	10
TIMESTAMP	depends on the length of the timestamp format string	8
NUMERIC(10, 3)	10 (precision)	10 (precision)

Permissions

None

Side effects

None

Examples

The following example describes the information returned when querying all columns in the Departments table:

SELECT *  
FROM sa_describe_query( 'SELECT * FROM Departments DEPT' );

The results show the values of the is_key_column and is_added_key_column as NULL because the add_keys parameter was not specified.

The following example describes the information returned by querying the DepartmentName and Surname columns of the Employees table, joined with the Departments table:

SELECT  *
FROM  sa_describe_query( 'SELECT DepartmentName, Surname
 FROM Employees E JOIN Departments D ON E.EmployeeID = D.DepartmentHeadId',
 add_keys = 1 );

The results shows a 1 in rows 3 and 4 of the result set, indicating that the columns needed to uniquely identify rows in the result set for the query are Employees.EmployeeID and Departments.DepartmentID. Also, a 1 is present in the is_added_key_column for rows 3 and 4 because Employees.EmployeeID and Departments.DepartmentID were not explicitly referenced in the query being described.

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