ASA Programming Guide
Adaptive Server Anywhere .NET Data Provider API Reference
AsaDataReader class
Reads a stream of characters from the specified column offset into the buffer as an array starting at the given buffer offset.
long GetChars(
int ordinal,
long dataIndex,
char[ ] buffer,
int bufferIndex,
int length
)
ordinal The zero-based column ordinal.
dataIndex The index within the row from which to begin the read operation.
buffer The buffer into which to copy data.
bufferIndex The index for buffer to begin the read operation.
length The number of characters to read.
The actual number of characters read.
IDataRecord.GetChars
GetChars returns the number of available characters in the field. In most cases this is the exact length of the field. However, the number returned may be less than the true length of the field if GetChars has already been used to obtain characters from the field. This may be the case, for example, when the AsaDataReader is reading a large data structure into a buffer.
If you pass a buffer that is a null reference (Nothing in Visual Basic), GetChars returns the length of the field in characters.
No conversions are performed, so the data retrieved must already be a character array.