# ResultSetMetaData

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/resultsetmetadata/58204>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [April 19, 2006, 4:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/resultsetmetadata/58204 "2006-04-19T16:56:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![michaelb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@michaelb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/michaelb)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 4:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/resultsetmetadata/58204/1 "2006-04-19T16:56:16Z")

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dose Ruby or ActiveRecord have the Java/JDBC equivalent for retrieving  
ResultSet meta data…

PreparedStatement statement = null;  
try  
{  
statement = connection.prepareStatement(“select \* from some\_table”);

ResultSet rs = null;  
try  
{  
rs = statement.executeQuery();  
ResultSetMetaData rsMetaData = rs.getMetaData();  
int columnCount = rsMetaData.getColumnCount();

```
more stuff...
```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![michaelb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@michaelb](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/michaelb)\
**Post date:** [April 20, 2006, 10:14am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/resultsetmetadata/58204/2 "2006-04-20T10:14:33Z")

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Hi Barinek,

On Wed, Apr 19, 2006 at 11:56:23PM +0900, barinek barinek wrote:

> {  
> rs = statement.executeQuery();  
> ResultSetMetaData rsMetaData = rs.getMetaData();  
> int columnCount = rsMetaData.getColumnCount();
> 
> ```
> more stuff...
> 
> ```

```
Hmmm... you can use ActiveRecord::Base.columns to get a list of

```

ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::Column objects, like this:

```
MyModel.columns
# => [#<ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::Column:0xb749b798 

```

@limit=255,  
@type=:string, @name=“some\_field\_name”, @default=nil\>, …]

If you want metadata for random SQL queries (from ActiveRecord), I don’t  
think you can get it…

```
If you really want to query the database and retrieve meta data, you 

```

can  
always use Ruby’s DBI (see [http://ruby-dbi.rubyforge.org/](http://ruby-dbi.rubyforge.org/)). You have an  
explanation on meta data retrieving on “Using the Ruby DBI Module”, at  
[http://www.kitebird.com/articles/ruby-dbi.html#TOC\_9](http://www.kitebird.com/articles/ruby-dbi.html#TOC_9)

```
HTH,

```