Re: FreeTDS and UTF-8 support - What is UNICODE?

Hi, Sebastien,
This is a responce from the iODBC group:

-----Original Message-----
>From: iODBC Maintainer <[email protected]>
>Sent: Jul 30, 2008 3:39 AM
>To: Igor Korot <[email protected]>
>Subject: Re: [Iodbc-list] SQLWCHAR: what it resolves to?
>
>Hi Igor,
>
>> In Windows SQLWCHAR resolves itself to be a UTF16.
>> In *nix on unixODBC SQLWCHAR resolves itself to be unsigned short, i.e. UTF16.
>> 
>> What is SQLWCHAR in iODBC? Does it follow unixODBC implementation?
>> Does it depend on the "#define UNICODE" statement?
>> 
>
>At this time iODBC uses wchar_t on Unix, but this is scheduled to change 
>for the next release of iODBC.
>
>
>Patrick

So, iODBC didn't follow MS standard, but hopefully will do that starting from
the next release. I asked to confirm that and when the next release is antisipated.
I will post the result here.

Thank you.

-----Original Message-----
>From: Igor Korot <[email protected]>
>Sent: Jul 24, 2008 10:08 AM
>To: Sebastien FLAESCH <[email protected]>, FreeTDS Development Group <[email protected]>
>Subject: Re: [freetds] FreeTDS and UTF-8 support - What is UNICODE?
>
>Sebastien,
>
>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Sebastien FLAESCH <[email protected]>
>>Sent: Jul 24, 2008 9:11 AM
>>To: Igor Korot <[email protected]>, FreeTDS Development Group <[email protected]>
>>Subject: Re: [freetds] FreeTDS and UTF-8 support - What is UNICODE?
>>
>>Igor Korot wrote:
>>> Sebastien,
>>> 
>>>> SQLWCHAR is #define UNICODE dependent, and I think it can be wchar_t,
>>>> while SQLCHAR can only be char.
>>> 
>>> SQLWCHAR _is_ #define UNICODE dependent (that's why it has W in it's name),
>>> however it is resolving itself to be unsigned short. When I was looking at
>>> the unixODBC headers, I was also confused and had to ask the maintainer.
>>> 
>>> The reason being (according to him) is that 'unsigned short' is 2 bytes
>>> everywhere, and also because SQLWCHAR is defined as UTF-16 on Windows.
>>> I don't know about SQLCHAR though. My program is UNICODE only.
>>
>>Thanks Igor ... interesting.
>>
>>If you let me make a comment about your last sentence:
>>
>>"My program is UNICODE only."
>
>OK, let me rephrase it then:
>
>"My program is "UNICODE" only." ;-)
>
>>
>>I think we should not use "UNICODE" when we talk about a character set
>>(must be "UCS-2" in your case).
>>
>>UNICODE can be implemented by different character encodings, it can be
>>UTF-7, UTF-8, UTF-16, UCS-2, UCS-4 ...
>
>I totally agree with you. However, it looks like *nix is using UTF8 by default
>as a "wide character" encoding. And it becoming a standard "de ure".
>>
>>I known the Windows people think UNICODE = UCS-2 / UTF-16 but that's
>>a shortcut that confuses people that are new to I18N ;-)
>
>Yes, see above.
>
>>
>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNICODE
>
>Also, keep in mind that my comment refers to the unixODBC. I didn't check what is
>going on in the iODBC package. That will be my next step, unless you want to do it/
>beat me to it.
>
>>
>>Cheers,
>>Seb
>
>Thank you.