Problems making dynamic cursor for webserver

we have a list of variables that users can select. These vars will be columns in the dataset the user wants to see. We can easily create a string
with this information that holds the select statement needed to get the
information.

The big problem is that the columns in the select statement are not constant. A column that is the third column in one query can be the fifth or
the tenth column in the next query... simply because the user selected more
variable he wants to see...

When you have to create a cursor with this information you get into trouble
because you have to know the column names of the columns in your select
string plus the local variables in which to store the information during the
cursor loop... basically it is a different cursor every time !!!!!!

The only solution I could think of was to parse this select string (the only
information we have) into a number of flag variables (true for a selected
column and false for an unselectd one). You could then do a number of if-then's to run through al the possible columns and create a cursor column
only if the column was selected by the user. During the cursor loop you
could use these flags again when you're printing the columns to the screen...

If somebody can point out the error of my reasoning and solve the problem
much easier, I will be most happy !

Rudie Missoorten
Froukemaheerd 240
9736 RV Groningen
050-5421569 Received on Wed Sep 10 1997 - 00:00:00 CDT