DataFlex Replacement Data Types - cDbUpdateFunctionLibrary

When using the framework's embedded SQL (ESQL) functions for making changes to a database, the developer has two choices for specifying the data type to be used. This is true for functions like SQLColumnAdd where the new column's data type needs to be specified.

Either use one of the integer constants of the "Framework Type Constant" from the table below and the framework will use the database driver to map to an SQL data type that matches the DF_XXX_DUF constant. Better is to use one of the "SQL Type Constant" from one of the tables on the next few pages, that corresponds to the SQL database back-end and driver used. The latter is the recommended way as it gives you much better control over which data type is used when creating a new SQL column.

The reason we need to have our "own" defined integer constants is that some of the SQL driver's data types uses the same integer values as the DataFlex type constants and thus it is impossible for the framework to know which data type the developer refers to.

Data Type	Framework Type Constant	Framework Integer Constant	DataFlex Type Constant	DataFlex Integer Constant

ASCII	DF_ASCII_DUF	-1500	DF_ASCII	0
Numeric	DF_BCD_DUF	-1499	DF_BCD	1
Binary	DF_BINARY_DUF	-1494	DF_BINARY	6
Date	DF_DATE_DUF	.1498	DF_DATE	2
DateTime	DF_DATETIME_DUF	.1493	DF_DATETIME	7
Text	DF_TEXT_DUF	-1495	DF_TEXT	5

The framework type constants has a value of the DataFlex constant - 1500, to distinguish them from other driver SQL data types.

Note: You should NEVER use any of the standard DataFlex data type constants; DF_ASCII, DF_DATE, DF_BCD etc. when using one of the "SQLxxx" functions or the result will be unpredictable!