FreeTDS Development Group

["Richard C. Pollock" <rcp-conseaco AT worldnet.att.net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: freetds-admin AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:freetds-admin AT lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of James K. Lowden
Sent: Saturday, November 23, 2002 10:16 AM
To: freetds AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [freetds] Late Binding


On Fri, 22 Nov 2002 23:27:44 -0800, Jason Luros <jluros AT hotmail.com>
wrote:
> When is late parameter binding (I.E. Setting output parameters on a
> stored procedure) going to be supported in the FreeTDS/DBI-ODBC
> architecture? 

Please keep in mind that FreeTDS is a free software project, Jason, and
one based on reverse engineering at that.  The "when is <feature> going to
work" question pre-supposes a schedule we don't have.  You're welcome to
join us, though.  

Two years ago, there was no FreeTDS ODBC driver.  A year ago, it was
barely useful.  Nowadays, thanks to Frediano, it's gotten much better, and
he's working on "placeholder" support, which is what I think you're
talking about.  It's hard, and requires a big time commitment, not least
because the protocol is undocumented.  

On the DBI side, you're talking about ct-lib support.  No one is working
on that.  If I get the db-lib side working, we'll have a model for what to
do in ct-lib.  Part of the problem there is that the vendors'
implementations diverged: although Sybase documented TDS 5.0, Microsoft
chose a very different design.  I personally don't like looking at packet
traces to guess at the protocol, so I'm relying on Frediano (or anyone
else interested) to blaze a trail.  

My ostensible motivation is to get stored procedure output parameters to
work with SQL Server 2000.  This despite the fact that in 10 years of
db-lib programming I've never been tempted to use that feature....

So, when?  Not this year.  Probably next year.  If things keep going as
they are, probably sooner rather than later.  But the process isn't
regular and the progress isn't linear.  

Regards, 

--jkl
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