FreeTDS Development Group

["Bill Thompson" <thompbil AT exchange.uk.ml.com>]

Hey Everybody,

here's the lowdown on many of the points raised, as far as I understand
them:

1) Connection from UNIX to SQL Server using Sybase open client libraries.
You CAN use Sybase's dblib to connect from UNIX to SQL server 7 & 2000. 
This is achievable if you make a call to dbsetversion() to make dblib talk
TDS 4.2 (the parameter confusingly is DBVERSION_46 or something like
that.)
Not only does this work, but Microsoft are openly supporting this method
for the foreseeable future. There is a comparable call in ct-lib I believe
(to affect the TDS protocol version being used) but I've never tested it.

2) sqsh and Sybase db-lib and SQL 2000 
You can download an old version of sqsh (1.4 I believe) which uses db-lib
instead of ct-lib. You can modify this to make the call to dbsetversion,
and hey presto - that will work against SQL 2000 as well...

3) Sybase's isql and bcp utilities
These DONT work against SQL 2000 , presumably because they are hard wired
to use TDS 5.0 . Also, crucially, neither does the db-lib bcp api, which
problem brought me into the FreeTDS community in the first place...

4) My modifications , which Brian is patching in.
I have made extensive modifications to the bcp functionality in  FreeTDS.
I have made it work against SQL 2000 (Though not 7.0 unfortunately) and I
have implemented the db-lib bcp api , which several people alluded to. You
can do a crude sort of batching with this, which I have also coded.

5) BCP command line program.
I've also given Brian my code for this, which will work with the FreeTDS
modifications. I've called it FreeBCP!

Any questions - I'll be happy to answer. If Brian's going to patch in my
changes I expect I'll have a few bugs to fix too :-)

Bill Thompson