How can I get the table description (fields and types) from Firebird with dbExpress

Question

I have written a tool for displaying database structures using the GetTableNames and GetFieldNames methods of TSQLConnection. How can I get the types of each field name similar

Answer 1

This is incomplete (because I've never used Firebird array data types) and not much tested but perhaps it will give you a good starting point:

SELECT
  RF.RDB$FIELD_NAME FIELD_NAME,
  CASE F.RDB$FIELD_TYPE
    WHEN 7 THEN
      CASE F.RDB$FIELD_SUB_TYPE
        WHEN 0 THEN 'SMALLINT'
        WHEN 1 THEN 'NUMERIC(' || F.RDB$FIELD_PRECISION || ', ' || (-F.RDB$FIELD_SCALE) || ')'
        WHEN 2 THEN 'DECIMAL'
      END
    WHEN 8 THEN
      CASE F.RDB$FIELD_SUB_TYPE
        WHEN 0 THEN 'INTEGER'
        WHEN 1 THEN 'NUMERIC('  || F.RDB$FIELD_PRECISION || ', ' || (-F.RDB$FIELD_SCALE) || ')'
        WHEN 2 THEN 'DECIMAL'
      END
    WHEN 9 THEN 'QUAD'
    WHEN 10 THEN 'FLOAT'
    WHEN 12 THEN 'DATE'
    WHEN 13 THEN 'TIME'
    WHEN 14 THEN 'CHAR(' || (TRUNC(F.RDB$FIELD_LENGTH / CH.RDB$BYTES_PER_CHARACTER)) || ') '
    WHEN 16 THEN
      CASE F.RDB$FIELD_SUB_TYPE
        WHEN 0 THEN 'BIGINT'
        WHEN 1 THEN 'NUMERIC(' || F.RDB$FIELD_PRECISION || ', ' || (-F.RDB$FIELD_SCALE) || ')'
        WHEN 2 THEN 'DECIMAL'
      END
    WHEN 27 THEN 'DOUBLE'
    WHEN 35 THEN 'TIMESTAMP'
    WHEN 37 THEN 'VARCHAR(' || (TRUNC(F.RDB$FIELD_LENGTH / CH.RDB$BYTES_PER_CHARACTER)) || ')'
    WHEN 40 THEN 'CSTRING' || (TRUNC(F.RDB$FIELD_LENGTH / CH.RDB$BYTES_PER_CHARACTER)) || ')'
    WHEN 45 THEN 'BLOB_ID'
    WHEN 261 THEN 'BLOB SUB_TYPE ' || F.RDB$FIELD_SUB_TYPE
    ELSE 'RDB$FIELD_TYPE: ' || F.RDB$FIELD_TYPE || '?'
  END FIELD_TYPE,
  IIF(COALESCE(RF.RDB$NULL_FLAG, 0) = 0, NULL, 'NOT NULL') FIELD_NULL,
  CH.RDB$CHARACTER_SET_NAME FIELD_CHARSET,
  DCO.RDB$COLLATION_NAME FIELD_COLLATION,
  COALESCE(RF.RDB$DEFAULT_SOURCE, F.RDB$DEFAULT_SOURCE) FIELD_DEFAULT,
  F.RDB$VALIDATION_SOURCE FIELD_CHECK,
  RF.RDB$DESCRIPTION FIELD_DESCRIPTION
FROM RDB$RELATION_FIELDS RF
JOIN RDB$FIELDS F ON (F.RDB$FIELD_NAME = RF.RDB$FIELD_SOURCE)
LEFT OUTER JOIN RDB$CHARACTER_SETS CH ON (CH.RDB$CHARACTER_SET_ID = F.RDB$CHARACTER_SET_ID)
LEFT OUTER JOIN RDB$COLLATIONS DCO ON ((DCO.RDB$COLLATION_ID = F.RDB$COLLATION_ID) AND (DCO.RDB$CHARACTER_SET_ID = F.RDB$CHARACTER_SET_ID))
WHERE (RF.RDB$RELATION_NAME = :TABLE_NAME) AND (COALESCE(RF.RDB$SYSTEM_FLAG, 0) = 0)
ORDER BY RF.RDB$FIELD_POSITION;