A/AK:
SnODBC is a binding for ODBC API. It is distributed as starkit that may be sourced to have a snodbc package available. The starkit may also be run to see the documentation.
URL: http://www.sw4me.com/snodbc.kit
The starkit contains binaries of Ffidl and dict extensions compiled for Windows-x86 and Linux-x86.
2005-10-06 For the convenience of those who don't use tclkit and starkits, ready-to-use binary distributions were prepared:
SnODBC is mostly compatible with TclODBC, but there are some subtle differences. See the documentation for details.
The main good difference is that SnODBC supports Unicode character types. Other advantages of SnODBC include:
The extension is developed for Tcl 8.5; this starkit was created with some help of the sugar macro processor to translate {expand} syntax into the compatible replacement for Tcl-8.4. See using sugar for forward-compatible {expand} for a syntax macro that does this job.
The version of the starkit presented here may be used with Tclkit 8.4 (tested on 8.4.9), or with any Tcl 8.4 distribution supporting starkits, such as ActiveTcl, dqkit, TixTclKit.
Once downloaded, the starkit may be updated to the latest version with the sdx tool:
sdx update -from http://sw4me.com/cgi-bin/starsync snodbc.kit
2005-09-16: Some changes were made to improve TclODBC compatibility. Now the vast majority of scripts using TclODBC will just work with SnODBC as well.
snichols 09-16-05 I am curious did you use Ffidl to create the C wrappers for the C based ODBC API?
A/AK 09-17-05 I use Ffidl to create the TCL commands that call ODBC functions in ODBC shared library. There is no C functions in SnODBC, and, consequently, no compilation is required when Ffidl is already available.
snichols That's pretty wild. So Ffidl is what exposes the C based ODBC functions to Tcl?
A/AK Yes. Ffidl is great at exposing C based functions to Tcl at runtime.
snichols If I have some time I may try using it to expose some LDAP functions to Tcl using the popular Mozilla LDAP C API.
escargo 27 Oct 2005 - I downloaded the Microsoft Windows binary-only version (not the starkit) and found two problems with its installation on my ActiveState 8.4.11 installation (on Windows XP Pro).
Once I made those changes, I was able to load snodbc.
Once I loaded it, I tried this code:
database datasources system
I got a response:
can't rename "{EngTestDB {SQL Server}}": command doesn't existSo there is still something not quite right with the binary-only installation.
Later. I tried the same test using source to source the starkit version, and then package require. I get the same error as before.
A/AK 02-Nov-2005 - Fixed the error with datasources and drivers, and added executable permissions for DLLs.
As of ::odbc namespace, it is used in pkgIndex.tcl at the place where it is surely defined. If you see a message about an undefined namespace when loading the package, I would like to see the message and the stack trace.
I've tested the package with ActiveTcl 8.4.1, dqkit, tclkit etc. No namespace-related errors have been noticed.
Mea culpa: I've forgot to test "datasources" and "drivers" for 8.4 backport, and I've not noticed the DLL permissions issue because my unzipper doesn't set permissions on MS Windows; but it would be very strange if the namespace is OK on my machine and missing on some other one.
15nov05 jcw - Had to add a package require Tk before "source $starkit::topdir/help/help.tcl" in main.tcl, and noted that the starkit help will generate an error with 8.4, but with tclkit 8.5 the help came up fine (tried on Mac, I have no real ODBC driver for it, so it was just to see the docs).
13April06 snichols - I fixed a bug in my copy of snodbc when using it with SQL prepared statements. The bug has to do with using blank Tcl data (like set myvar {}) in SQL prepared statements. I guessed where to fix it in the code but it works. I recommend the snodbc author double-check my new way snipit below. FYI... The original tclodbc package suffers from the same problem, but I don't have the C++ sources it fix it too. Here's what I changed in snodbc's odbc-obj.tcl package script to make prepared statements work with blank varchars passed from Tcl:
# Old Way (find this line in odbc-obj.tcl)
if {!$pprec} { set pprec $charlen}
set bound [SQLBindParameter $hstmt $ip 1 $c_type $ptype $pprec $pscale [::ffidlx::buffer addr $buf] [string length $bytes] [expr {$theIndicator+$pib}]]
# New Way
if {!$pprec} { set pprec [expr {$charlen + 1}]}
set bound [SQLBindParameter $hstmt $ip 1 $c_type $ptype $pprec $pscale [::ffidlx::buffer addr $buf] [expr {[string length $bytes] + 1}] [expr {$theIndicator+$pib}]]In the latter snipit, I simply increased the allocated SQL buffer by one to handle blank Tcl data. This shouldn't hurt anything that I know of. Another way to code it would be to first check if the length of the Tcl var was zero then add one if it is.
Overall I think the snodbc extension is really good. My only request is it would be nice if it worked with Tcl version 8.31. I know it uses the new Tcl dictionary object. This section would have to be rewritten. Category Database | Category Package