15th April 2019: PostgreSQL Code of Conduct Committee 2018 Annual Report
Supported Versions: Current (11) / 10 / 9.6 / 9.5 / 9.4
Development Versions: devel
Unsupported versions: 9.3 / 9.2 / 9.1
PostgreSQL 9.6.12 Documentation
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DESCRIBE

Name

DESCRIBE -- obtain information about a prepared statement or result set

Synopsis

DESCRIBE [ OUTPUT ] prepared_name USING [ SQL ] DESCRIPTOR descriptor_name
DESCRIBE [ OUTPUT ] prepared_name INTO [ SQL ] DESCRIPTOR descriptor_name
DESCRIBE [ OUTPUT ] prepared_name INTO sqlda_name

Description

DESCRIBE retrieves metadata information about the result columns contained in a prepared statement, without actually fetching a row.

Parameters

prepared_name

The name of a prepared statement. This can be an SQL identifier or a host variable.

descriptor_name

A descriptor name. It is case sensitive. It can be an SQL identifier or a host variable.

sqlda_name

The name of an SQLDA variable.

Examples

EXEC SQL ALLOCATE DESCRIPTOR mydesc;
EXEC SQL PREPARE stmt1 FROM :sql_stmt;
EXEC SQL DESCRIBE stmt1 INTO SQL DESCRIPTOR mydesc;
EXEC SQL GET DESCRIPTOR mydesc VALUE 1 :charvar = NAME;
EXEC SQL DEALLOCATE DESCRIPTOR mydesc;

Compatibility

DESCRIBE is specified in the SQL standard.

See Also

ALLOCATE DESCRIPTOR, GET DESCRIPTOR
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