Re: A new issue with bcp/freebcp

Hi Freddy,

> The field length is taken from database information or from format
> file ?? It we truncate to database length we will just silently
> truncate data. I remember I saw a truncation warning/error using bcp
> so I think truncating always is not correct.

The field length referred to in my snippet from the manual means the maximum field length specified in the format file.
We most definitely shouldn't silently truncate to the database field length.
We should (and do) raise an error if we attempt to load say 6 characters into a four character field.
The point is here that the maximum field length specified in the format file is saying:
"I only want you to consider the first n characters of the data in the data file"

> In your example data was "123456  ", perhaps dblib just trim spaces so
> it does not give error. I don't know relationship between format file
> and bcp.

That's a subtly different and independent piece of functionality, which should be retained.
The data in the file might have been "12345678"...
In any case in our code, we call dbconvert (which attempts to convert 8 characters to 6 and hence fails), before we reach the block which trims off the trailing spaces...

Bill

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Frediano Ziglio
Sent: 08 June 2011 13:21
To: FreeTDS Development Group
Subject: Re: [freetds] A new issue with bcp/freebcp


2011/5/31 Thompson, William <[email protected]>:
> Hi All,
>
> I've had a new issue reported to me on freebcp.
> This has come from someone migrating from Sybase to SQL Server, using freetds as their "enabler" - an increasing trend in the use of freetds, I'm told.
> So we have some solid evidence - "This works using Sybase bcp, but it doesn't work with freebcp" - and although it's an edge case, I think it should be fixed.
>
> So the problem occurs with freebcp using a format file. It evidences itself as a dbconvert() overflow error...
>
> The problematic column is CHAR(6) on the database
> The line from the format file for the column looks like this:
>
> 22      SYBCHAR 0       6       "~"     22      cost_center
>
> and a snippet from the problematic line from the data file, showing the problematic host file data looks like this:
>
> ...~123456  ~...
>
> So in the format file, we've given a host file data length as 6 (the fourth token in the format file), but we've also said the data is terminated  (by a "~")
> However, there's a couple of extra spaces on the end of that data in the data file, giving it a total length of 8 characters.
>
> Well I took a look at this, and the Sybase manual pages for format files tells me the following about the host file data length:
>
>
> "Host file data length refers to the maximum number of bytes to copy for the field. To decide how much data to copy in or out, bcp uses one of:
>
> - The maximum field length
> - The prefix length, if any
> - The field terminator string, if any
>
> If more than one method of field length specification is given, bcp chooses the one that copies the least amount of data."

The field length is taken from database information or from format
file ?? It we truncate to database length we will just silently
truncate data. I remember I saw a truncation warning/error using bcp
so I think truncating always is not correct.

In your example data was "123456  ", perhaps dblib just trim spaces so
it does not give error. I don't know relationship between format file
and bcp.

> This caused me to delve into _bcp_read_hostfile()  (in src/dblib/bcp.c). To be honest, it shows the signs of having "evolved" to deal with the myriad of possibilities available to the innocent or pragmatic user. I'm probably to blame for much of that ad-hoc evolution, and here's another mutation to add to the mix. It works, and doesn't make things significantly worse than they they currently are:
> Add the following lines to the function after approximately line 1421 of bcp.c (some context given):
>
>               /*
>                * FIXME bcpcol->bcp_column_data->data && bcpcol->column_size ??
>                * It seems a buffer overflow waiting...
>                */
>
> +              /* If column length specified (in a format file), then it *might*   */
> +              /* be less than the data read from file (if the column was also     */
> +              /* described as a terminated field...) in this case we need to only */
> +              /* take the number of characters specified in the column length     */
> +
> +              if (hostcol->column_len > 0) {
> +                     collen = (hostcol->column_len < collen) ? hostcol->column_len : collen;
> +              }
>
>               bcpcol->bcp_column_data->datalen =
>                    dbconvert(dbproc, hostcol->datatype, (const BYTE *) coldata, collen, desttype,
>                              bcpcol->bcp_column_data->data, bcpcol->column_size);
>
>               if (bcpcol->bcp_column_data->datalen == -1) {
>
>
> In penance, I may re-work the function at some point soon. The code is going to keep me awake at nights otherwise...
>
> Bill
>

Frediano
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