base.Channel.read

Reads a list of data delimited by a separator from the channel.

Syntax

read(
   [ variableList ] )
  RETURNS INTEGER
  1. variableList is a list of program variables separated by a comma, or record.*

Usage

After opening the channel object, use the read() method to read a record of data from the channel.

The read() method uses the field delimiter defined by setDelimiter().

The read() method takes a modifiable list of variables as parameter, by using the [ ] square brace notation.

A call to read() is blocking until the read operation is complete.

If the read() method returns less data than expected, then the remaining variables will be initialized to NULL. If the read() method returns more data than expected, the data is silently ignored.

Any target variable must have a primitive type (BOOLEAN, TINYINT, SMALLINT, INT, BIGINT, SMALLFLOAT, FLOAT, DECIMAL, DATE, DATETIME, INTERVAL, BYTE, TEXT, CHAR, VARCHAR, STRING) or be a RECORD that contains only primitive members.

If data is read, the read() method returns TRUE. Otherwise it returns FALSE, indicating the end of the file or stream.

Example

WHILE ch.read([cust_rec.*])
  ...
END WHILE

For a complete example, see Example 1: Reading formatted data from a file.