FreeTDS Development Group

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

On Sun, 13 Jul 2003 00:58:56 -0700, "Steve Murphree" <smurph AT smcomp.com>
wrote:
> > - checks. Steve added some check (parameters value checks) that should
> > be done by DM, not by driver
> 
> The goal was to link against the libodbc in place of a driver manager
> for those systems that don't have shared libraries e.g. OpenBSD/mvme88k
> :-)

Also, there's no rule that one must use a DM.  I think it would be well to
support "DM-less" configurations.  

> The IBM DB2 cli library also does this.  Also, the way I interpret the
> ODBC API, the driver is responsible for some of these value checks.

AFAIK, there's no specification for a DM, either.  It's sort-of an assumed
functionality of the OS, no?  

> Microsoft clearly marks which sqlstates the driver manager returns and
> which sqlstates the driver returns.  They may be implemented by some
> driver managers, but an assumption is an assumption is an assumption...
> I also could have gone a bit overboard.  :-)

IMHO (rather too often stated on this list) ODBC error messages from most
drivers are tragically bad.  They're either vague or wrong or both.  

M$ foisted a lot of work on the driver writers, who didn't do it, allowing
the, um, problem to run downhill to the application writer, who generally
can't do much more than pass it on to the user, who sees "unspecified
error" when there's an error in his SQL text.  

Anything we do to make our error messages specific and accurate is a
service to our user community.  

--jkl