C# and NpgsqlDataAdapter returning a single string instead of a data table

Question

I have a postgresql db and a C# application to access it. I'm having a strange error with values I return from a NpgsqlDataAdapter.Fill command into a DataSet.

I've got this code:

NpgsqlCommand n = new NpgsqlCommand();
n.Connection = connector; // a class member NpgsqlConnection

DataSet ds = new DataSet();
DataTable dt = new DataTable();

// DBTablesRef are just constants declared for
// the db table names and columns

ArrayList cols = new ArrayList();
cols.Add(DBTablesRef.all); //all is just *

ArrayList idCol = new ArrayList();
idCol.Add(DBTablesRef.revIssID);

ArrayList idVal = new ArrayList();
idVal.Add(idNum); // a function parameter

// Select builder and Where builder are just small
// functions that return an sql statement based
// on the parameters.  n is passed to the where
// builder because the builder uses named  
// parameters and sets them in the NpgsqlCommand
// passed in
String select = SelectBuilder(DBTablesRef.revTableName, cols) +
WhereBuilder(n,idCol, idVal);

n.CommandText = select;

try
{
    NpgsqlDataAdapter da = new NpgsqlDataAdapter(n);

    ds.Reset();

    // filling DataSet with result from  NpgsqlDataAdapter
    da.Fill(ds);

    // C# DataSet takes multiple tables, but only the first is used here
    dt = ds.Tables[0];
}
catch (Exception e)
{
    Console.WriteLine(e.ToString());
}

So my problem is this: the above code works perfectly, just like I want it to. However, if instead of doing a select on all (*) if I try to name individual columns to return from the query I get the information I asked for, but rather than being split up into seperate entries in the data table I get a string in the first index of the data table that looked something like:

"(0,5,false,Bob Smith,7)"

And the data is correct, I would be expecting 0, then 5, then a boolean, then some text etc. But I would (obviously) prefer it to not be returned as just one big string.

Anyone know why if I do a select on * I get a datatable as expected, but if I do a select on specific columns I get a data table with one entry that is the string of the values I'm asking for?

Answer 1

Ok, I figured it out, it was in the SelectBuilder function. When more than one column was listed in the select statement it was wrapping the columns in ()'s, and apparently this causes either postgreSQL or Npgsql to interpret that as a desire to return a list in string form.