ODBC FAQs

Find frequently asked ODBC questions when using the System i® Access for Linux product.

What are the differences between the ODBC driver included with the System i Access for Linux product and the ODBC driver included with the System i Access for Windows product?

Table 1. Differences between the System i Access for Linux ODBC driver and System i Access for Windows ODBC driver.
Function	Linux ODBC	Windows ODBC
The driver	The driver is an ODBC 3.5 ANSI driver with the ability to store and process Unicode data. An ANSI driver does not support Unicode strings passed as arguments to the APIs. Applications passing Unicode strings on APIs will work because the unixODBC driver manager maps calls these calls to the ANSI driver's narrow interfaces.	The driver is an ODBC 3.5 Unicode driver. A Unicode driver accepts Unicode strings as arguments to the APIs.
Signon	To sign on you must specify a user ID and password when calling the connection API or have the user ID and password entered into the DSN. The ODBC driver does not prompt for System i user IDs or passwords. User ID and password updates must be done through a System i telnet session.	The user has sign on options that control which user ID and password to use when connecting. When connecting, cached passwords might be used. If a user's password has expired a dialog is displayed to allow a user to change it.
Binding a parameter or column	When binding a parameter or a column with SQL_C_WCHAR as the C type, wchar_t buffers should not be passed in. The driver manager and driver both handle the SQL_C_WCHAR data type as a 2 byte UCS-2 string.	When binding a parameter or a column with SQL_C_WCHAR as the C type, wchar_t buffers should be passed in. The driver manager and driver both handle the SQL_C_WCHAR data type as a 2 byte UCS-2 string.