FreeTDS Development Group

["Viswanathan" <viswanathan.natarajan AT patni.com>]

Hi Freddy,

Thanks the char set problem is resolved once I made the entry for
UTF-8 in freetds.conf file. now I am able to connect to BD and query the DB.

Thanks
Viswa

-----Original Message-----
From: ZIGLIO, Frediano, VF-IT [mailto:Frediano.Ziglio AT vodafone.com]
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2004 2:49 PM
To: viswanathan.natarajan AT patni.com; FreeTDS Development Group
Subject: RE: [freetds] DB Connectivity & Character set Problem while
connectingto MSSQL 7.0 server from Linux via PHP using FreeTDS


> 
> Hi,
> 
> 
> I am facing a  problem with regards to DB connectivity using 
> FreeTDS. I
> checked the log freetds.log and I think
> The problem is because of the character set that is returned 
> by MSSQL not
> being recognized by freeTDS .
> The connection to Database works and returns a valid handle but while
> querying the Database using this handle,
> I get the following error.
> 
> Warning: mssql_query() [function.mssql-query]: WARNING! Some 
> character(s)
> could not be converted into client's character set. 
> Unconverted bytes were
> changed to question marks ('?'). (severity 16)
> 

It's not an error but a warning.

> I am using MSSQL 7.0 and trying to connect to it via freetds 
> version 8.0
> form a Linux box running PHP.
> 
> My FreeTDS.conf looks like this
> 
> 
> 
> NAS -  freetds.conf

...
> 
> [cbsidbdv1corpge]
>         host = cbsidbdv1corpge.corporate.ge.com
>         port = 1433
>         tds version = 8.0
> 

You don't set client charset, default it's iso8859-1.

...
> 
> 
> when i run sp_helpsort on DB host I get the following o/p
> 
> Unicode data sorting
> ----------------------
> Locale ID = 1033
> 
>  case insensitive, kana type insensitive, width insensitive
> 
> 
> Sort Order Description
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> --------------
> --------------------------------------------------------
> Character Set = 2, cp850
>     Code Page 850 (Multilingual) character set.
> Sort Order = 42, nocase_850
>     Case-insensitive dictionary sort order for use with several We
>     stern-European languages including English, French, and German
>     .  Uses the Code Page 850 character set.
> 
> Characters, in Order
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> --------------
> --------------------------------------------------------
>     ! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . / : ; < = > ? @ [ \ ] ^ _ ` { | }
>   ~    ׃                   + +   + + - - +
>   - + + + - -  - +  + +  _        =       ��   
>       0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A=a =  =  =  =  =  =  =  B=b C
>  =c =  D=d E=e =  =  =  =  F=f G=g H=h I=i =  =  =  =  i
>   J=j K=k L=l M=m N=n =  O=o =  =  =  =  =  =  P=p Q=q R=r
>   S=s  T=t U=u  =  =  =  = V=v W=w X=x Y=y  =   Z=z =  = 
> 
> appreciate any help on this.
> 

Simply iso8859-1 can't represent all cp850 characters so FreeTDS complaints
about. You can ignore warning and handle possible corrupted conversions or
change client charset. You are using PHP so I think you output web pages. My
suggestion in this case it's to use utf-8. This charset can represent any
present and ancient language (even characters not possible on mssql) and
it's supported by all browsers.

freddy77

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