OLE Automation Result Sets

If an OLE Automation property or method returns data in an array with one or two dimensions, the array is returned to the client as a result set:

A one-dimensional array is returned to the client as a single-row result set with as many columns as there are elements in the array. For example, an array(10) is returned as a single row of 10 columns.
A two-dimensional array is returned to the client as a result set with as many columns as there are elements in the first dimension of the array and with as many rows as there are elements in the second dimension of the array. For example, an array(2,3) is returned as 2 columns in 3 rows.

When a property return value or method return value is an array, sp_OAGetProperty or sp_OAMethod returns a result set to the client. (Method output parameters cannot be arrays.) These procedures scan all the data values in the array to determine the appropriate Microsoft® SQL Server™ data types and data lengths to use for each column in the result set. For a particular column, these procedures use the data type and length required to represent all data values in that column.

When all data values in a column share the same data type, that data type is used for the whole column. When data values in a column use different data types, the data type of the whole column is chosen based on the following chart.

	int	float	money	datetime	varchar
int	int	float	money	varchar	varchar
float	float	float	money	varchar	varchar
money	money	money	money	varchar	varchar
datetime	varchar	varchar	varchar	datetime	varchar
varchar	varchar	varchar	varchar	varchar	varchar

For more information about how the OLE Automation stored procedures converts data between Microsoft® Visual Basic® and SQL Server data types, see Data Type Conversions Using OLE Automation Stored Procedures.