Support REMARKS for columns and tables

Driver version or jar name

Microsoft JDBC Driver 6.4 for SQL Server 6.4.0.0

SQL Server version

Microsoft SQL Server 14.00.3015

Client operating system

Windows 10

Java/JVM version

Java™ SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_121-b13) Java HotSpot™ 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.121-b13, mixed mode)

Table schema

CREATE TABLE Publishers
(
  Id INTEGER NOT NULL IDENTITY,
  Publisher VARCHAR(255),
  PRIMARY KEY (Id)
);
EXECUTE SP_ADDEXTENDEDPROPERTY 'MS_Description', 
   'List of book publishers',
   'user', 'dbo', 'table', 'Publishers'
;
EXECUTE SP_ADDEXTENDEDPROPERTY 'MS_Description', 
   'Unique (internal) id for book publisher',
   'user', 'dbo', 'table', 'Publishers', 'column', 'Id'
;
EXECUTE SP_ADDEXTENDEDPROPERTY 'MS_Description', 
   'Name of book publisher',
   'user', 'dbo', 'table', 'Publishers', 'column', 'Publisher'
;

Problem description

DatabaseMetaData.getTables(...) and DatabaseMetaData.getColumns(...) does not return table and column descriptions in the REMARKS column. The REMARKS column should have the description from the extended properties.

Expected behavior and actual behavior

See above.

Repro code

Call DatabaseMetaData.getTables(...) and DatabaseMetaData.getColumns(...) .

[diederik123]

Hello @cheenamalhotra The current status of this point is not clear for me. I do not understand your comment from the 8th of May in combination with the changed statuses. Do you want to explain why this issue is closed? Thank you.

[cheenamalhotra]

HI @sualeh

“Extended properties” are meant to store Key-Value pairs for anything that can be useful for maintaining details about table/column. Adding additional property to the driver for reading these extended properties and finding out description does not sound a robust solution, as:

1. It adds dependency for clients to configure connection property everytime they’re reading a description from “Extended properties” for a Table and then for a column - which mean 2 additional properties - leads to reconnect if different tables have different KEY for descriptions. Not all customers will always have same “KEY” for description they want to read.
2. From driver’s perspective, if we are fetching 1 property for REMARKS, what about the other extended properties defined, there is no API that could read them - that becomes another issue.

In our point of view, these properties should be treated as “Extended properties” only, not to be mixed with Remarks and must be fetched as Key-value Pair array by calling fn_listextendedproperty in client applications.

Remarks on the other hand, is always returned NULL from SQL Server, and all SQL Server drivers follow same rule, including jTDS Driver, hence JDBC Driver should abide to that as well.