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ADOdb Data Types

ADOdb provides a cross-platform method of identifying the data type of a field. These values can be used as a replacement in code that relies on the data type of field to produce a result. Each database driver contains a cross-reference table of datatypes that can accessed using the metaType() method.

Summary Of Types

Type	Represents Field Types
C	character fields that should be shown in a <input type=“text”> tag
X	TeXt, large text fields that should be shown in a <textarea>
B	Blobs, or Binary Large Objects. Typically images.
D	Date field
T	Timestamp field
L	Logical field (boolean or bit-field). Some databases emulate logicals using I2 fields
I	Integer field, This may be broken down further into I2,I4 or I8 types
N	Numeric field. Includes autoincrement, numeric, floating point, real and integer.
R	Serial field. Includes serial, autoincrement integers. This works for selected databases. Some databases do not signify if a field is auto-increment

Using Data Types For Non-Portable Applications

There are benefits to using ADOdb data types even when writing an application that is not designed to be portable. The metaType() method can hide numerous data sub-types from a developer, when the difference in the field is not important. For example the following actual data types in the Microsoft SQL Server driver are all represented by the ADOdb type C:

Data Type	Description
-9	nvarchar
-8	nchar
1	char
12	varchar