Programming the Perl DBI

Name

type_info (NEW )

Synopsis

@type_info = $dbh->type_info($data_type);

Warning: This method is experimental and may change.

Returns a list of hash references holding information about one or more variants of $data_type. The list is ordered by DATA_TYPE first and then by how closely each type maps to the corresponding ODBC SQL datatype, closest first. If called in a scalar context then only the first (best) element is returned.

If $data_type is undefined or SQL_ALL_TYPES, then the list will contain hashes for all datatype variants supported by the database and driver.

If $data_type is an array reference, then type_info returns the information for the first type in the array that has any matches.

The keys of the hash follow the same letter case conventions as the rest of the DBI (see "Naming Conventions and Name Space”). The following items should exist:

TYPE_NAME (string)

Datatype name for use in CREATE TABLE statements, etc.

DATA_TYPE (integer)

SQL datatype number.

COLUMN_SIZE (integer)

For numeric types, this is either the total number of digits (if the NUM_PREC_RADIX value is 10) or the total number of bits allowed in the column (if NUM_PREC_RADIX is 2).

For string types, this is the maximum size of the string in bytes.

For date and interval types, this is the maximum number of characters needed to display the value.

LITERAL_PREFIX (string)

Characters used to prefix a literal. A typical prefix is "'" for characters, or possibly "0x" for binary values passed as hexadecimal. NULL (undef ...