Re: Another PDO ?

On 9/10/2012 11:10 AM, Lester Caine wrote:
> Jim Giner wrote:
>> On 9/10/2012 10:49 AM, Bastien Koert wrote:
>>> On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 9:48 AM, Jim Giner
>>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> Reading up on the pdostatement class.  Wondering what the intent of the
>>>> columnCount function is.  I mean, aren't the number of columns in a
>>>> result
>>>> known when you write the query?  Granted, you might have some very
>>>> complex
>>>> query that you may not know the number, but for most queries you
>>>> will know
>>>> the columns you are expecting.  So - what am I not seeing?
>>>>
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>>>
>>> It might be for those cases where you run a select * from ...
>>>
>> But - again - one already knows how many fields are in that table when
>> one
>> writes the query...
>
> You do not necessarily KNOW how many fields. You know how many fields
> should be in the version of the database you are coding for, so any
> difference would flag a problem. Also you may not ACTUALLY have the
> schema for a database in which case a count of the fields found is
> useful for further processing those fields.
>
> Another area is when you are working with fabricated joined queries
> where duplicate field names between tables will give a reduced number of
> final fields in the result.
>
> Of cause it IS often better to work with named fields rather than using
> '*' which does allow better handing of the process anyway.
>
I find it difficult to fathom a scenario where I am able to write 
queries against a db but not have access to the layouts.  Makes it kind 
of hard to know what I'm going to get back....  but I guess it must 
occur somewhere since someone decided this function was necessary.

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