Posted by Erland Sommarskog on 04/02/07 21:50

(ianforgroupuse@hotmail.co.uk) writes:
> If I don't specify SET FMTONLY ON/OFF in my code is there a default
> state that I can rely on?

SET FMTONLY ON is usually submitted behind the scenes. ADO Classic
is notorious for doing this without being asked. ADO .Net is far more
well-behaved. But if you use CommandBehaviour.MetaDataOnly, there is a
SET FMTONLY sent to SQL Server.

> Is it the same for all SQL implementations?

It's the client API that gets the idea to issue SET FMTONLY ON, so the
version of SQL Server should not matter.

It could certainly help if you could post your code.
--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel@sommarskog.se

Books Online for SQL Server 2005 at
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/downloads/books.mspx
Books Online for SQL Server 2000 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/previousversions/books.mspx

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