FreeTDS Development Group

[Bob Kline <bkline AT rksystems.com>]

On Mon, 12 Mar 2001, Jon Finanger wrote:

> Trying to use the fretds_jdbc.jar to connect to my SQL Server 7.0
> failed with som contructor/conection error. Using the
> fretds_jdbc.snapshot.jar succeded. Whats the difference between the
> snapshot and the non-snapshot? 

The snapshot is the current version of the driver.  The other jar is
more than a year old.

> why the different names?

Well, the name 'snapshot' is commonly used to refer to regular archives
or builds of a package, and generally implies a lower degree of
stability than numbered older versions.

Here's an excerpt from the descriptions [1] of the directory contents on
the FTP server from which you probably picked up the files.

 freetds_jdbc-X.X.tgz          Latest officially released version.
 freetds_jdbc-X.X.zip          Latest officially released version.
 freetds_jdbc-X.X.jar          Latest officially released version.
  
 freetds_jdbc.tgz              Latest version that has been through
                               the regression test.

 freetds_jdbc.jar              Latest version that has been through
                               the regression test and placed in
                               a JAR file.  This jar file is compiled
                               for JDBC version 1.0 and might not
                               run with JDK 1.2.  If you need a
                               version that runs with JDK 1.2 you
                               should get the latest source code
                               and compile it yourself.
  
 freetds_jdbc.snapshot.jar     Latest version at the head of the CVS
                               tree that compiled and placed in a JAR file.
                               It has not been tested and might not even
                               run at all.  This jar file should work 
                               with JDK1.1 and JDK1.2.

I think it's fair to say that this system of distinctions, while
theoretically sound, has lost at least some of its usefulness, given the
age of the latest officially released version (over two years) and the
significant number of bug fixes and enhancements which have been applied
since.  Many (myself included) would consider the latest version more
stable than the officially released version, or the version "which has
been through the regression test."

[1] ftp://freetds.internetcds.com/pub/freetds_jdbc/00-Index.txt

-- 
Bob Kline
mailto:bkline AT rksystems.com
http://www.rksystems.com