FreeTDS Development Group

["James K. Lowden" <jklowden AT schemamania.org>]

On Mon, 7 Apr 2003 18:05:04 -0400 , "Lowden, James K"
<LowdenJK AT bernstein.com> wrote:
> 
> I'm adding tds_get_char_data(), which takes a const TDSICONVINFO*,
> allowing conversion to be more intelligent (including per-column).  If
> the pointer is NULL, no conversion is done.  

Just committed to CVS a version that runs sp_who under tsql.  I think
we're now about back to where we were before I started mucking with
things.  I missed the snapshot cutoff, though, so if you're looking to try
out the new version, you'll have to wait until it comes around again on
the guitar.  

We are *not* ready for UTF-8.  There are still some shortcuts in the code
that have to be, um, lengthened.  

I intend two more changes in the near future:

1.  Change tds_iconv to mimic iconv(3).  All tds_iconv really does is
handle unconvertible characters until it exhausts its input.  The current
version is needlessly hard to work with.  And, yeah, that's my fault.  

2.  Add a TDSICONVINFO* to every column.  If it can use the "global"
to_client descriptor, fine, point to it.  If not, allocate a new one for
the conversion.  On deallocation, close the descriptor and free the
stucture if it doesn't match the global one.  (Perhaps better would be
linked list of TDSICONVINFO* for every conversion we run across?  Most
databases won't spawn new conversion pairs very often, and will tend to
need the same conversions in query after query.)

As far as I can tell, we really don't need to keep track of char/byte
ratios and don't need to provide them to tds_iconv.  The real question is
always: What descriptor do I hand to iconv?  That's all that really
matters.  

Once those changes are made, we can hunt down the shortcuts and begin
paving the way for UTF-8 clients and servers (and UCS-2 clients). 

Discussion welcome.  That's why I post these rambling messages, to sort
out the brilliance from the lunacy.  It's not always as obvious as it
might seem, to know which is which.  

--jkl