Re: SQL Server 2008 features supported by FreeTDS 0.9x

Thank you James for this clear explanation.

Yes I saw the ref to 7.3 TDS protocol in the UG.

Seb

James K. Lowden wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Sep 2011 11:44:43 +0200
> Sebastien FLAESCH <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>> I see that FreeTDS supports SQL Server 2008, 
> 
> I guess you're referring to the last row in table 3-1 in the UG?  I wish
> someone had spotted that.  It's wrong.  
> 
> We need better documentation about this, agreed.  It would help me very
> much if we had a consultant in our midst who uses a variety of servers
> and is willing to maintain a feature-set list for every server
> release.  As it is, I found out about 2008 & 7.3 when my office upgraded
> last November.  
> 
> SQL Server 2008 introduced TDS version 7.3.  You can still connect to
> it with 7.[012], but you don't get the new datatypes.  
> 
> Microsoft is very good about backwards compatibility: old clients can
> connect to new servers.  Datatypes that don't exist in any given
> version of the protocol are converted to one that does exist.  A TDS
> 4.2 client connecting to a modern server can still select from a table
> with NUMERIC and DATE, the server converts them to float and varchar.  
> 
>> I would like to know what
>> features of SQL Server 2008 are supported.
>>
>> For example, are the DATE, TIME and DATETIME2 types supported?
> 
> Release 0.91 is a SQL Server 2005, TDS 7.2 release.  There is no
> support for TDS 7.3.  If you connect to a 2008 server, it will convert
> any new types to something supported in TDS 7.2 (i.e. SQL Server
> 2005).  Notably, you cannot use 0.91 to BCP into tables with the new
> types.[1]
> 
> Support for TDS 7.3 is an all or nothing proposition: if the login
> packet indicates a 7.3 client, the server uses the new features, all of
> them, else none.  It will be a long road unless help arrives.  
> 
> Frediano has begun to work on TDS 7.3.  I have embarked in another
> direction, to replace libtds with an automaton generated from a
> tablular description of the TDS protocol.   Frediano said he liked the
> idea; it's now up to me to show something that works, at least
> partially.  I'm making progress and will post my findings when I have
> something resembling a working parser.  (Anyone who wants to know more
> knows where to find me.)  
> 
> I hope that answers your question.  
> 
> --jkl
> 
> [1]  It would be *interesting* to try sending 7.3 types upstream via
> bcp on a 7.2 connection.  I wonder how the server would react.  It
> might not mind....
> 
> _______________________________________________
> FreeTDS mailing list
> [email protected]
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/freetds
>