20.4.17 mysql_fetch_lengths()

unsigned long *mysql_fetch_lengths(MYSQL_RES *result)

20.4.17.1 Description

Returns the lengths of the columns of the current row within a result set. If you plan to copy field values, this length information is also useful for optimization, because you can avoid calling strlen(). In addition, if the result set contains binary data, you must use this function to determine the size of the data, because strlen() returns incorrect results for any field containing null characters.

The length for empty columns and for columns containing NULL values is zero. To see how to distinguish these two cases, see the description for mysql_fetch_row().

20.4.17.2 Return values

An array of unsigned long integers representing the size of each column (not including any terminating null characters). NULL if an error occurred.

20.4.17.3 Errors

mysql_fetch_lengths() is valid only for the current row of the result set. It returns NULL if you call it before calling mysql_fetch_row() or after retrieving all rows in the result.

20.4.17.4 Example

MYSQL_ROW row;
unsigned long *lengths;
unsigned int num_fields;
unsigned int i;

row = mysql_fetch_row(result);
if (row)
{
    num_fields = mysql_num_fields(result);
    lengths = mysql_fetch_lengths(result);
    for(i = 0; i < num_fields; i++)
    {
         printf("Column %u is %lu bytes in length.\n", i, lengths[i]);
    }
}