Programming the Perl DBI

Name

bind_columns

Synopsis

$rc = $sth->bind_columns(@list_of_refs_to_vars_to_bind);

Calls bind_col for each column of the SELECT statement. The bind_columns method will die if the number of references does not match the number of fields.

For maximum portability between drivers, bind_columns should be called after execute.

For example:

$dbh->{RaiseError} = 1; # Do this, or check every call for errors
$sth = $dbh->prepare(q{ SELECT region, sales FROM sales_by_region });
$sth->execute;
my ($region, $sales);

# Bind Perl variables to columns:
$rv = $sth->bind_columns(\$region, \$sales);

# You can also use Perl's \(...) syntax (see perlref docs):
#     $sth->bind_columns(\($region, $sales));

# Column binding is the most efficient way to fetch data
while ($sth->fetch) {
    print "$region: $sales\n";
}

For compatibility with old scripts, the first parameter will be ignored if it is undef or a hash reference.