DESCRIBE

Supported versions: Current (18) / 17 / 16 / 15 / 14

Development versions: 19 / 20devel

Unsupported versions: 13 / 12 / 11 / 10 / 9.6 / 9.5 / 9.4 / 9.3 / 9.2 / 9.1

Historical version. PostgreSQL 10 has reached end of support. 2022-11-10. See the current manual.

DESCRIBE
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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.

Report a documentation issue

Read the upstream documentation. For corrections, first check the current manual.