Update CCommand, please!

One of the problems I find with the ATL OLE DB Consumer Templates is that you have to know what you are going to get before you ask for it. Wait - this is normal, right? Looks normal but when you are handling generic SQL commands, you only know what you are going to get after asking for it.

There are two different kinds of SQL commands: the ones that return something and the ones that return nothing. The first class of commands are the classical SELECT commands - they always return something, even if it's only a single row count. On the other hand INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE commands (as well as all the DDL commands) do not return rows for you to process.

Making this distinction is very important when you use CCommand: what accessor and rowset types will you use? All non-SELECT commands typically use a CDynamicAccessor and a CRowset where all others may get away with CNoAccessor and CNoRowset. This means that you need to know what kind of SQL command to execute before instantiating the proper template parameters in CCommand. This is a nuisance when running generic SQL commands. Why?

Let's look at the code in CCommand::Open. Somewhere near the bottom of the method, you can see (ATL 3):

if( bBind & 
   _OutputColumnsClass::HasOutputColumns())
    return Bind();
else
    return hr;

This is bad. By default, bBind is true (default function parameter) but the HasOutputColumns function is defined by the accessor class you provide as a template parameter for CCommand. Gotcha - you need to now if the command returns rows before instantiating CCommand. So how do you go around this? How do you run generic SQL commands without having errors thrown at you, no matter what accessor you use?

Easy. Just change the last code snippet so it reads:

if (bBind && GetInterface() != NULL)
    return Bind();
else
    return hr;

Now all commands will run without having assertions thrown at your face. To see if you actually have an accessor and a rowset, just test GetInterface(). If it's NULL then your command returned nothing.