dbExpress Driver and Framework support for SQL Anywhere 12
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RAD Studio provides support for the SQL Anywhere 12 from Sybase iAnywhere. Features include:
- New data type supported by SQL Anywhere 12: TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE.
- Changes in behavior for existing data types such as CHAR, NCHAR, and NVARCHAR.
- New connectivity options: the host and port connection parameters.
Contents
Requirements
- Latest SQL Anywhere version 12.0.0 client
- New platform support: x64
New data types
A new data type is supported to conform to the new SQL Anywhere version 12. The new TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE data type stores a point in time with a time zone offset. TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE contains the year, month, day, hour, minute, second, fraction of a second, and number of minutes before or after the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The fraction is stored to six decimal places. A TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE value requires ten bytes of storage.
The accepted format is 2009-07-15 08:00:00 -08:00, where:
| Component | Number of digits |
|---|---|
|
Year |
1 to 4 digits |
|
Month |
1 or 2 digits |
|
Day |
1 or 2 digits |
|
Hour |
1 or 2 digits |
|
Minutes |
1 or 2 digits |
|
Seconds |
1 or 2 digits |
|
Fraction of seconds |
1 to 6 digits |
|
Time zone hour |
1 or 2 digits |
|
Time zone minutes |
1 or 2 digits |
The maximum accepted precision is 34.
Behavior changes to existing data types
The CHAR, NCHAR, NVARCHAR, and VARCHAR data types now support 32768 characters length values.
If the described byte length in the client character set for the NCHAR, NVARCHAR, CHAR, or VARCHAR data type with character length semantics would be more than 32767, then these types are described as the LONG NVARCHAR or LONG VARCHAR data type.
Existing data types
The following table lists the data types that are supported by version 12 of the iAnywhere driver along with their SQL and DBX correspondents:
| ASA field type | SQL type | DBX type |
|---|---|---|
|
fldASACHAR |
SQL_CHAR |
fldZSTRING |
|
fldASAVARCHAR |
fldASAVARCHAR |
fldZSTRING |
|
fldASADECIMAL |
SQL_DECIMAL |
fldBCD |
|
fldASANUMERIC |
SQL_NUMERIC |
fldBCD |
|
fldASASMALLINT |
SQL_SMALLINT |
fldINT16 |
|
fldASAINTEGER |
SQL_INTEGER |
fldINT32 |
|
fldASAREAL |
SQL_REAL |
fldSINGLE |
|
fldASAFLOAT |
SQL_FLOAT |
fldFLOAT |
|
fldASADOUBLE |
SQL_DOUBLE |
fldFLOAT |
|
fldASALONGVARCHAR |
SQL_LONGVARCHAR |
fldBLOB |
|
fldASABIT |
SQL_BIT |
fldBOOL |
|
fldASALONGVARBIT |
SQL_BIT |
fldBOOL |
|
fldASAVARBIT |
SQL_BIT |
fldBOOL |
|
fldASATINYINT |
SQL_TINYINT |
fldUINT8 |
|
fldASABIGINT |
SQL_BIGINT |
fldINT64 |
|
fldASABINARY |
SQL_BINARY |
fldVARBYTES |
|
fldASAVARBINARY |
SQL_VARBINARY |
fldVARBYTES |
|
fldASALONGVARBINARY |
SQL_LONGVARBINARY |
fldBLOB |
|
fldASAIMAGE |
SQL_LONGVARBINARY |
fldBLOB |
|
fldASALONGBINARY |
SQL_LONGVARBINARY |
fldBLOB |
|
fldASAUNIQUEIDENTIFIER |
SQL_GUID |
fldZSTRING |
|
fldASADATE |
SQL_DATE |
fldDATE |
|
fldASATIME |
fldASATIME |
fldTIME |
|
fldASATIMESTAMP |
SQL_TIMESTAMP |
fldTIMESTAMP |
|
fldASADATETIME |
SQL_DATETIME |
fldTIMESTAMP |
|
fldASASMALLDATETIME |
SQL_DATETIME |
fldTIMESTAMP |
|
fldASAMONEY |
SQL_NUMERIC |
fldBCD |
|
fldASASMALLMONEY |
SQL_NUMERIC |
fldBCD |
|
fldASALONGNVARCHAR |
SQL_WLONGVARCHAR |
fldBLOB |
|
fldASANCHAR |
SQL_WCHAR |
fldWIDESTRING |
|
fldASANTEXT |
SQL_WLONGVARCHAR |
fldBLOB |
|
fldASANVARCHAR |
SQL_WVARCHAR |
fldWIDESTRING |
|
fldASATEXT |
SQL_LONGVARCHAR |
fldBLOB |
|
fldASAUNIQUEIDENTIFIERSTR |
SQL_CHAR |
fldZSTRING |
|
fldASAXML |
SQL_LONGVARCHAR |
fldBLOB |
|
fldASAWCHAR |
SQL_WCHAR |
fldWIDESTRING |
|
fldASAWVARCHAR |
SQL_WVARCHAR |
fldWIDESTRING |
|
fldASAWLONGVARCHAR |
SQL_WLONGVARCHAR |
fldBLOB |
|
fldASANULL |
SQL_TYPE_NULL |
fldUNKNOWN |
|
fldASAUNKNOWN |
SQL_UNKNOWN_TYPE |
fldUNKNOWN |
|
fldASADATETIMEOFFSET |
SQL_VARCHAR |
fldTIMESTAMPOFFSET |
New connectivity options
Two new connectivity options are available with the SQL Anywhere version 12. They are used to specify the host and the port attributes of the connection.
The new Host connection parameter takes a host name (or an IP address) and an optional port number that tells the client where to find the database server. When you use the Host parameter, no UDP packets are sent if enough information is given to uniquely identify the server (a host name and a port number). If neither a port number nor a database server name is given, the port number is assumed to be 2638 and the client does not perform a broadcast. However, if the client has a host name and database server name, but no port number, it sends a UDP packet to port 2683 on the specified host, to find the port number.
For example, if a database server is named testserver and is running on a computer called testcomputer on the default port number, the following connection string can be used to connect to the database server:
UID=DBA;PWD=sql;Server=testserver;Host=testcomputer:2683
If the port number is unknown, then you can simply use the following connection string to connect to the database server:
UID=DBA;PWD=sql;Server=testserver;Host=testcomputer
Follow Up
At clients' request, the following features can be implemented:
- TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE conversion to TIMESTAMP and vice versa.
- Different format support for the TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE data type.
- Data types for spatial data and support for spatial compatibility functions.
Notes
For any server-side changes, please visit the vendor's online support.