Data Type Handling in OLE DB Object Services

The subsections that follow explain how OLE DB Object Services treats various data elements.

Database Queries

For regular database commands, the connector determines the data type of the fields/columns usng the Field, Element, Relation, Array Value Field, and Conditional Field metadata. Based on Element Type for each Field, the data types are determined as:

Lawson Element Type OLE DB Data Type
  • ALPHA
  • TELEPHONE
  • MMDD
  • ALPHARIGHT
  • TIME
  • YYYYMM
  • ALPHALOWER
  • DERIVED
 Treated as variable length strings with a specified maximum length.
  • YYMMDD
  • YYYYMMDD
 Treated as dates. If the Internet Object Services sends an empty string for a date, that is represented as a database NULL.
  • NUMERIC
  • BCD
  • PERCENT
  • CURRENCY
  • DOUBLE
 Treated as long integers if the number of decimal positions is zero and the total number of possible digits is less than 10. Otherwise, these are treated as the DECIMAL data type with a specified scale and precision. See your VB documentation for the DECIMAL data type for more information.

For database commands that access the GEN database by specifying the GEN product line, all data types are variable length strings with a maximum length of 100 characters. These strings let you access GEN information without storing metadata in the GEN database.

For secured fields, the system returns '############'. The connector will not return this result to the consumer, so the connector sets the status on the column to DBSTATUS_E_UNAVAILABLE and does not initialize the field.

Form Queries

The following table describes the data type handling for form queries.

Form Metadata OLE DB Data Type
If the Field Edit is signed or numeric Treated as long integers if the number of decimal positions is zero and the total number of possible digits is less than 10. Otherwise, these are treated as the DECIMAL data type with a specified scale and precision. See your VB documentation for the DECIMAL data type for more information.
If the Field Edit is date and the size is 6 or 8 and the Field Type is not "Out" Treated as dates. NULL dates are treated as database NULL values.
All other data Treated as variable length strings with a specified maximum length.

For secured fields, the form query returns "***********". The connector will not return this result to the consumer, so the connector sets the status on the column to DBSTATUS_E_UNAVAILABLE and does not initialize the field.

Drill Around Queries

The following table describes the data type handling for Drill Around queries.

IDA Find Field Type OLE DB Data Type
  • NUMERIC
  • BCD
 Treated as long integers if the number of decimal positions is zero and the total number of possible digits is less than 10. Otherwise, they are treated as the DECIMAL data type with a specified scale and precision. See your VB documentation for the DECIMAL data type for more information about this.
  • ALPHA
  • ALPHALC
  • ALPHARIGHT
  • YYYYMMDD
 Treated as variable length character strings with a specified maximum length.

For secured fields, the Drill Around query returns "***********". The connector will not return this result to the consumer, so the connector sets the status on the column to DBSTATUS_E_UNAVAILABLE and does not initialize the field.