dbbind

Binds a regular result column (a column of results from a SELECT statement's select list) to a program variable.

Syntax

RETCODE dbbind (
PDBPROCESS dbproc,
INT column,
INT vartype,
DBINT varlen,
LPBYTE varaddr );

where

dbproc

Is the DBPROCESS structure that is the handle for a particular workstation/ SQL Server process. It contains all the information that DB-Library uses to manage communications and data between the workstation and SQL Server.

column

Is the column number of the row data to be copied to a program variable. The first column is number 1.

vartype

Is a description of the binding's datatype. It corresponds to the datatype of the program variable that receives the copy of the data from the DBPROCESS. The dbbind function supports a wide range of type conversions, so vartype can be different from the type returned by the SQL query. For instance, a SQLMONEY result can be bound to a DBFLT8 program variable, using FLT8BIND, and the appropriate data conversion happens automatically. For a list of the data conversions provided by DB-Library, see dbwillconvert. For a list of the type definitions used by DB-Library, see DB-Library Datatypes.

The following table lists legal vartypes recognized by dbbind and the program variable and SQL Server type tokens that each refers to:

vartype	varaddr	SQL Server type of column
CHARBIND	DBCHAR	SQLCHAR, SQLVARCHAR, or SQLTEXT
STRINGBIND	DBCHAR	SQLCHAR, SQLVARCHAR, or SQLTEXT
NTBSTRINGBIND	DBCHAR	SQLCHAR, SQLVARCHAR, or SQLTEXT
VARYCHARBIND	DBVARYCHAR	SQLCHAR, SQLVARCHAR, or SQLTEXT
BINARYBIND	DBBINARY	SQLBINARY, SQLVARBINARY, or SQLIMAGE
VARYBINBIND	DBVARYBIN	SQLBINARY, SQLVARBINARY, or SQLIMAGE
TINYBIND	DBTINYINT	SQLINT1 or SQLINTN
SMALLBIND	DBSMALLINT	SQLINT2 or SQLINTN
INTBIND	DBINT	SQLINT4 or SQLINTN
FLT4BIND	DBFLT4	SQLFLT4 or SQLFLTN
FLT8BIND	DBFLT8	SQLFLT8 or SQLFLTN
BITBIND	DBBIT	SQLBIT
SMALLMONEYBIND	DBMONEY4	SQLMONEY4 or SQLMONEYN
MONEYBIND	DBMONEY	SQLMONEY or SQLMONEYN
DECIMALBIND	DBDECIMAL	SQLDECIMAL
NUMERICBIND	DBNUMERIC	SQLNUMERIC
SRCDECIMALBIND	DBDECIMAL	SQLDECIMAL
SRCNUMERICBIND	DBNUMERIC	SQLNUMERIC
SMALLDATETIBIND	DBDATETIM4	SQLDATETIM4 or SQLDATETIMN
DATETIMEBIND	DBDATETIME	SQLDATETIME or SQLDATETIMN

Note that the SQL Server type in the preceding table is listed merely for your information. The vartype you specify does not necessarily have to correspond to a particular SQL Server type because dbbind converts SQL Server data into the specified vartype.

The following table lists the four representations for character and text data. They differ according to whether the data is blank-padded or null-terminated:

vartype	varaddr	Padding	Terminator
CHARBIND	DBCHAR	blanks	none
STRINGBIND	DBCHAR	blanks	\0
NTBSTRINGBIND	DBCHAR	none	\0
VARYCHARBIND	DBVARYCHAR	none	none

Note that '\0' is the null terminator character. Similarly, binary and image data can be stored in two different ways:

vartype	varaddr	Padding
BINARYBIND	DBBINARY	nulls
VARYBINBIND	DBVARBINARY	none

When the source column specified by the column parameter has a type of SQLDECIMAL or SQLNUMERIC, you can keep the same precision and scale in your bound C variable by using SRCDECIMALBIND or SRCNUMERICBIND.

varlen

Is the length of the varaddr program variable in bytes. For fixed-length vartypes, such as MONEYBIND or FLT8BIND, this length is ignored. For character, text, binary, and image types, varlen must describe the total length of the available destination buffer space, including any space that can be required for special terminating bytes, such as a null terminator. If varlen is 0, the number of bytes available is copied into the program variable. (For char and binary SQL Server data, the number of bytes available is equal to the defined length of the database column, including any blank padding. For varchar, varbinary, text, and image data, the number of bytes available is equal to the actual data contained in the column.) Therefore, if you are sure that your program variable is large enough to handle the results, you can set varlen to 0.

In some cases, DB-Library issues a message indicating that data conversion resulted in an overflow. This is usually caused by a varlen specification being too small for the data being received from SQL Server. For example, if varlen is set to 5, vartype is set to VARYCHARBIND, and the SQL Server column being bound is of type VARCHAR with a length of 20. When the bind occurs (using dbnextrow), the overflow message is issued. Note however that five bytes of data will be bound. Other types of binds also can cause the overflow message to be issued. For information about datatype conversions, see "dbconvert."

varaddr

Is the address of the program variable to which the data is copied. Calling dbbind with a null varaddr parameter breaks a previously set binding.

When binding using DECIMALBIND or NUMERICBIND, the varaddr parameter must be a pointer to a DBNUMERIC or DBDECIMAL C variable, respectively, with the precision and scale fields of the structure already set to the desired values. You can use DEFAULTPRECISION to specify a default precision and DEFAULTSCALE to specify a default scale.

Returns

SUCCEED or FAIL. The dbbind function returns FAIL if the column number given isn't valid, if the vartype isn't compatible with the SQL Server type being returned, or if varaddr is null.

Remarks

Data comes back from SQL Server one row at a time. This function directs DB-Library to copy the data for a regular column (designated in a SELECT statement's select list) into a program variable. When each new row containing regular (not compute) data is read using dbnextrow or dbgetrow, the data from the designated column in that row is copied into the program variable with the address varaddr. There must be a separate dbbind call for each regular column to be copied. It is not necessary to bind every column to a program variable. A result column can be bound to only one program variable.

SQL Server can return two types of rows: regular rows and compute rows resulting from the COMPUTE clause of a SELECT statement. The dbbind function binds data from regular rows. Use dbaltbind for binding data from compute rows.

Calls to dbbind must be made after a call to dbresults and before the first call to dbnextrow.

Using dbbind causes some overhead because it copies the row data into the designated program variable. To avoid this copying, the returned data can be accessed more directly with dbdatlen and dbdata.

Since null values can be returned from SQL Server, there is a set of default values, one for each datatype, that will be substituted when binding null values. You can explicitly set your own values to be substituted for the default null value with the dbsetnull function. (For a list of the default substitution values, see dbsetnull.)

For the Windows operating system, DB-Library retrieves information about date, time, numeric, and currency formatting from the SQLCOMMN.LOC file. The location of SQLCOMMN.LOC is pointed to by the SQLLocalizationFile key in the Windows initialization file (WIN.INI) under the [SQLSERVER] application heading. For example:

[SQLSERVER]
SQLLocalizationFile=C:\SQL60\BIN\SQLCOMMN.LOC

For the Windows NT operating system, you set the date, time, numeric, and currency formatting using the International application in the Control Panel. Use the SQL Client Configuration Utility's Use International Settings option to activate this for DB-Library.

Example

This example shows the typical sequence of calls:

DBINT    xvariable;
DBCHAR    yvariable[10];

// Read the query into the command buffer. 
dbcmd(dbproc, "select x = 100, y = 'hello'");
// Send the query to SQL Server. 
dbsqlexec(dbproc);
// Get ready to process the results of the query. 
dbresults(dbproc);
// Bind column data to program variables. 
dbbind(dbproc, 1, INTBIND, (DBINT) 0, (BYTE *) &xvariable);
dbbind(dbproc, 2, STRINGBIND, (DBINT) 0, yvariable);

// Now process each row. 
while (dbnextrow(dbproc) != NO_MORE_ROWS)
{
    // C-code to print or process row data
}

See Also

dbaltbind, dbanullbind, dbconvert, dbdata, dbdatlen, dbgetrow, dbnextrow, dbresults, dbsetnull, dbwillconvert; DB-Library Datatypes