Newsgroups: comp.databases.oracle
From: James.Lawrence@epamail.epa.gov (Lawrence James)
Subject: Re: A Pro*C question..
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Date: Tue, 27 Dec 1994 08:17:36 GMT
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In article <D1A6v3.BFx@mail.auburn.edu> vasudevy@eng.auburn.edu (Vasudev V. Yendapally) writes:
>From: vasudevy@eng.auburn.edu (Vasudev V. Yendapally)
>Subject: Re: A Pro*C question..
>Date: Fri, 23 Dec 1994 20:42:39 GMT
 
> 
>In article HBy@mail.auburn.edu, vasudevy@eng.auburn.edu (Vasudev V. Yendapally) writes:
>>Hi,
>>  I'm trying to "describe" a given table and get the 
>>table attributes into some variable names.  I'm able to 
>>execute any statements that involve "SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE,
>>DELETE "  but when it comes to "describe tablename"  no 
>>action is performed and I simply exit the program.  
>>Can someone explain me how I can get these variables to 
>>be stored and can be displayed (using Pro*c ofcourse!)?
>>
>>Please send any of your replies to my E-Mail address :
>>
>>vasudevy@eng.auburn.edu
>>
>>Thanks for your time.
>>
>>Vasu/..
>>
>>
>>---
>>****************************           *********************************
>> Vasudev Yendapally                      333 EastMagnolia Ave # 3  
>> Dept. of Computer Science               Auburn AL - 36830          
>> Auburn University                       Phone   (205)-821-3501     
>>****************************           *********************************
>>
 
>Thanks to everyone who promply replied to my question.  I got it working.
 
>The methods that were suggested were.
 
>1. Fire off a sqlplus script that spools the desc statement to
>   a file, then open and read the file into your variables.
 
>2. define a cursor to select rows from user_tab_columns and
>   organized the returned values into your variables.
 
>Thanks again
>Vasu/..
 
>---
>****************************           *********************************
> Vasudev Yendapally                      333 EastMagnolia Ave # 3  
> Dept. of Computer Science               Auburn AL - 36830          
> Auburn University                       Phone   (205)-821-3501     
>****************************           *********************************

There is another way that doesn't rely on the data dictionary, thus works for 
all versions and other SQL databases.  Create a 'select * from <table> 
dynamic cursor.   Then have it parsed and describe it.  The describe will 
return you the column specifics.  Then just don't execute it.

Lawrence....