Is ODBC now the Native interface for MS-SQL7/2000 ?

After looking at the newsgroup microsoft.public.sqlserver.odbc I came across the follwing piece of information - anyone know if it is true? It would certainly explain a few things (why we can only get 255 chars out of varchars etc). Should I move my code over to ODBC? I have tried but the ODBC driver appears to lack any decent output (-1) for the odbc_num_rows function - which breaks my existing code (it performs checks on the amount of rows). Anyone have any information about this? Should I talk to the developer(s) of the MSSQL extension do you think? IF it is true then the php docs should at least illustrate this point as a warning. [start of ms post] They don't provide one because db-lib is a dead interface and hasn't been upgraded in 5+ years now. fyi - ODBC and OLE-DB *ARE* native interfaces to SQL Server - it is these you should be using. [person who asked the question wrote] > Why has Microsoft not provided a new ntwdblib.dll file for SQL Server 2000? > Clients, such as Crystal, rely on this being valid for the current database. > Crystal provides p2ssql.dll that communicates with ntwdblib.dll. Since > ntwdblib.dll was last updated with SQL Server 6.5, the p2ssql.dll driver > fails for clients. > > For example, column names > 30 chars in length don't work in Crystal if you > use the p2ssql.dll driver (that communicates with the very outdated > ntwdblib.dll library). There are several other issues with this as well. > > As a result, clients such as Crystal must use a more generic ODBC driver > (p2sodbc.dll). That works fine, but why doesn't MS provide a current NATIVE > driver to work with SQL Server 2000? Where can I get a NEW ntwdblib.dll to > install? I installed the latest MDAC and that didn't solve the problem. > Thanks. [end of ms post] Thanks for any pointers anyone throws up. Oliver Cronk p.s. this was found under the thread Re: ntwdblib.dll (Native vs. ODBC driver) on microsoft.public.sqlserver.odbc over the last couple of days (and so should still be there if anyone else wants to look at the entire thread).