Represents the description of a column in a Content Engine database table. A ColumnDefinition object describes a column used by a TableDefinition object. By reading the properties of these objects, you can query the values contained in a table.


The following tables list the members exposed by IColumnDefinition.

Public Properties

  Name Description
Public property AllowsNull Indicates whether the column permits null values.
Public property ColumnId The globally unique identifier (GUID) of the column in which the value of the property is stored.
Public property ColumnName The name assigned to the column.
Public property ColumnSize The size of the column.
Public property DataType Specifies a TypeID constant, which indicates the data type of the value that an object property, choice list, or database table column can hold.

For PropertyDescription, PropertyDefinition, and PropertyTemplate object types, this property is read-only and specifies the data type of the value that an object property can hold. Because the value of the DataType property is automatically set by the server to correspond to the specific object type of the PropertyDescription, PropertyDefinition, or PropertyTemplate object, you do not need to set it when you are creating a property template or property definition. For example, in a PropertyDescriptionBinary, PropertyDefinitionBinary, or PropertyTemplateBinary object, the server automatically sets the DataType property to a value of BINARY.

For ChoiceList objects, this property is settable on create and must be a LONG or STRING constant value. This property determines whether a choice list is an integer-type choice list, which holds integer-type choice items or a string-type choice list, which holds string-type choice items.

For ColumnDefinition objects, this property is read-only and specifies the data type of the object property value that is stored in the represented database table column.

Public property Id A representation of the Globally Unique Identifier (GUID), a unique 128-bit number, that is assigned to this Content Engine object when the object is created. When converted to a string, the Id property is typically depicted as 32 hexadecimal characters enclosed by brackets in the following format: {xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}. For example, {3F2504E0-4F89-11D3-9A0C-0305E82C3301}.

For IUser and IGroup classes, the Id property takes the value of the Security Identifier (SID) rather than the 128-bit GUID. The string representation of the SID is in this example format: S-1-5-21-1559522492-2815155736-3711640725-55269. When Active Directory is used as the directory service for IBM FileNet P8, IUser.Id and IGroup.Id always return the current SID for the principal, even if this user or group has only historical SIDs populating the Active Directory server.

For a given property representation, the Id property has the following characteristics:

  • PropertyDescription.Id is equal to PropertyTemplate.Id, which is equal to PropertyDefinition.PrimaryId.
  • PropertyDefinition.Id is not equal to PropertyDefinition.PrimaryId.
  • PropertyDefinition.Id is not equal to PropertyDescription.Id.

For a newly created document object, you can override the Id property of its associated VersionSeries object before you save or check in the document for the first time.

Public property IsSingleIndexed Manages usage of a user-defined index on this column.
Public property Name The name for this object.

For most classes, this property is read-only and returns the value of the designated name property for the object, or its ID if there is no name property. If ClassDescription.NamePropertyIndex has a value, this property contains the value of the designated name property. If there is no designated name property value, and the object has an Id property, this property contains the string value of the Id property. If neither of these conditions is satisfied, this property contains an empty string.

For a ComponentRelationship object, this property is read/write and specifies the name of the object.

Top

See Also