FreeTDS Development Group

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

If someone knows a standard way to answer the question:

        "How big a buffer do I need to convert type X to a string?"

I'd like to hear about it.  I looked and didn't find one. 

We have three copies of tds_get_printable_size() (in dblib/bcp.c,
bsqldb.c, and fisql.c), all the same hack.  I thought I'd try to improve
things a bit.  

My solution: make tds_willconvert() (and thus dbwillconvert()) return a
length instead of just true/false.  If the conversion would succeed and
the desttype is a variable-length type (e.g. SYBCHAR), the function
returns not 1, but the size of a buffer guaranteed to be big enough to
hold srctype if converted to a string.  

I.e.
        dbwillconvert(SYBINT1, SYBCHAR)

returns 3 instead of 1.  

This would break code like:

        if (dbwillconvert(...) == TRUE)

but I doubt much such code exists.  

I think this is better than adding a whole new function.  

Comments welcome....

--jkl