Result sets and iterators

Embedded SQLJ uses result-set iterator objects rather than cursors to manage result sets (cursors are used by languages such as Informix® ESQL/C). A result-set iterator is a Java™ object from which you can retrieve the data returned by a SELECT statement. Unlike cursors, iterator objects can be passed as parameters to a method.

Important: Names of iterator classes must be unique within an application.

When you declare an iterator class, you specify a set of Java™ variables to match the SQL columns that your SELECT statement returns. There are two types of iterators: positional and named.

Positional iterators

The order of declaration of the Java™ variables of a positional iterator must match the order in which the SQL columns are returned. You use a FETCH...INTO statement to retrieve data from a positional iterator.

For example, the following statement generates a positional iterator class with five columns, called CustIter:

#sql iterator CustIter( int , String, String, String, String, String );

This iterator can hold the result set from the following SELECT statement:

SELECT customer_num, fname, lname,  address1, 
address2, phone
FROM   customer

Named iterators

The name of each Java™ variable of a named iterator must match the name of a column returned by your SELECT statement; order is irrelevant. The matching of SQL column name and iterator column name is case insensitive.

You use accessor methods of the same name as each iterator column to obtain the returned data, as shown in the example in A simple embedded SQLJ program. The SQLJ translator uses the iterator column names to create accessor methods. Iterator column names are case sensitive; therefore, you must use the correct case when you specify an accessor method.

You cannot use the FETCH...INTO statement with named iterators.

For example, the following statement generates a named iterator class called CustRec:

#sql iterator CustRec(
int    customer_num, 
String fname, 
String lname ,
String company ,
String address1 ,
String address2 ,
String city ,
String state ,
String zipcode ,
String phone 
);

This iterator class can hold the result set of any query that returns the columns defined in the iterator class. The result set from the query can have more columns than the iterator class, but the iterator class cannot have more columns than the result set. For example, this iterator class can hold the result set of the following query because the iterator columns include all of the columns in the customer table:

SELECT *  FROM customer