METADATA APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACE FOR AD HOC DATABASE QUERIES

摘要

Embodiments include a metadata application programming interface (API) for processing ad hoc database queries. Embodiments can be configured to process ad hoc database queries to determine the structure of the resulting data set and to provide metadata in the form of a result table, for example, in response to the queries that describes the structure of the data to be accessed by the queries. In one embodiment, this may be performed without accessing the data that would be retrieved upon executing the query. Certain embodiments may be adapted to prevent execution of the query and to return the metadata describing the structure of the data structure(s) in the resulting data set. A new “describe” statement can be incorporated into a query language expression and configured to work in a functionally coordinated manner with the API to implement a “describe” function in accordance with the techniques described in this disclosure.