6 Jul
2009
6 Jul
'09
10:39 a.m.
Juha Heinanen wrote:
Alex Balashov writes:
No, what I meant is that the database interaction library itself (e.g.
libmysqlclient) provide ways to get this information into native data
primitives generically, which lends itself to more generic and simple
machine processing.
In the case of PHP, to run with your example, it would be something like
this:
http://us.php.net/manual/en/function.mysql-fetch-field.php
This PHP function exposes a native underlying function in libmysqlclient
that is sure to be accessible from the C API as well. It does not
simply parse the textual output of a DESCRIBE command.
No matter how compelling this direction, it is certainly more difficult
than simply using 'version' numbers -- of that there is no question.
--
Alex Balashov
Evariste Systems
Web : http://www.evaristesys.com/
Tel : (+1) (678) 954-0670
Direct : (+1) (678) 954-0671
Mobile : (+1) (678) 237-1775
Most database APIs provide a way to expose the
table definition as well,
i.e. a list of column types and names.
that is what mysql describe and show statements do, but analyzing the
output is not convenient (columns, types, attributes, index).