FreeTDS Development Group

["Lowden, James K" <james.k.lowden AT alliancebernstein.com>]

> From: Eloy Lafuente
> Sent: Thursday, September 21, 2006 12:37 PM
> 
> I'm using FreeTDS to handle one MSSQL 2005 server
> ...
> Everytime I create one table having NULL fields, they become NOT
> NULL in the target DB.
> 
> Curiously, executing the same CREATE TABLE statement from the "tsql"
> command line interface, the table is created properly (with NULL
> fields being NULL).

Whether a column in a CREATE TABLE statement is NULL or NOT NULL by
default (when not explicit in the DDL) depends on the connection options
(a/k/a session properties).  Cf. "dbcc useroptions".  Database options
also play a role, cf. sp_dboption.  In particular, see "When not
explicitly specified, column nullability follows these rules" in the
description of CREATE TABLE in books online.
(http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms174979.aspx)

ODBC connections are given different session properties at connect time
than are db-lib connections.  The FreeTDS db-lib turns off the "I'm an
ODBC driver" bit when it logs in, whereas tsql does not, so tsql's
behavior will differ in this regard from a db-lib application e.g.
bsqldb or the PHP mssql extension.  

HTH.

--jkl



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