Re: ODBTP PECL Extension - Evaluation

Robert Twitty wrote:

Based on suggestions by others, I have made some modifications to the odbtp extension. It now can be used for the mssql ext via function aliasing, just like the sybase ext. You will be able to use this ext with very few changes, if any, to existing PHP scripts that use the mssql ext.

Hi Robert, I might be a little paranoid here, but all my alarm bells keep ringing when I read the paragraph above ;-) When I first tried connecting to an MSSQL server from a Linux box via the Sybase extension (which was supposed to "emulate" the MSSQL ext. which was not available on Linux at that time), I spent *weeks* with debugging, searching through almost nonexistant or completely inaccurate documentation and constantly posting questions to newsgroups and mailinglists until I finally found out that the Sybase extension did not support the complete commandset of the MSSQL extension. Those commands where for example used in PEAR::DB´s tableinfo() method, which I needed, so the extension was completely useless to me. Luckily, a few weeks later PHP 4.3.0 came out which offered the possibility to compile the MSSQL extension on Linux. What I want to say with this little tale is: IF you do function aliasing, PLEASE provide proper documentation about the difference in behaviour from the "normal" mssql extension. The best would be a function table where all the differences are listed and that also states if a function is not available or a new one is added, etc. It will save many headaches, I´m sure ;-)

Not only does it include virtually all of the functionality from the mssql ext, it also includes all of the additional odbtp functionality, such as mssql_prepare, mssql_set_cursor, mssql_commit and mssql_rollback. The behaviour of the odbtp/mssql ext will also be exactly the same on all platforms.

That sounds *very* exciting... I´ll have to try this one out ASAP :-) Regards, Markus