Re: ODBC Developers

[CC'd to the ODBC List]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stergios Zissakis [mailto:szis(at)intranet(dot)gr]
> Sent: 02 July 2004 14:58
> To: Dave Page
> Subject: RE: ODBC Developers
>
> Hi Dave,

Hi Stergios,

Please CC any future emails to the list so other know what's going on so
we don't get more than one person doing the same thing (which can be
*really* annoying when someone else submits a patch the same as one that
you spent hours working on!)

> Regarding the work I undertook on ODBC driver, I have a few questions:
> 1) Where can I get a spec for ODBC 3.0?

The ODBC spec is included with the Microsoft MDAC 2.8 SDK, along with
various test utilities if I remember correctly. Download from
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en (search
for 'mdac sdk').

> 2) Where can I get information on UNICODE?

Google is your friend :-). Alternatively, try http://www.unicode.org/

> 3) Are there any specific test cases I have to execute?

No. We have no test plan or test cases. Feel free to look into
developing a plan, perhaps using the utilities in the SDK.

> 4) Is there a standard document for test results?

Nope. See above :-)

>
> I need the first things to get me started. 3 and 4 will help
> with testing the conformance of driver with respect to the
> 3.0 standard and unicode.
> I hope you understand that all this is new to me (can't say
> Greek to me because I am a Greek:) and I need a starting
> point. I can work on this and produce a document that can be
> used to initiate other people to the driver
> developemnt/testing environment but I will need to be pointed
> to the right direction.

I'll help whereever I can - as always though, it's best to email the
list when you need help as there are other people (with better brains
and more time) who may also be able to help!

> I want to take slowly and don't jump straight to the code
> before having a understanding of the environment.

A good plan.

> BTW I've logged the OTL bug in GBorg and also had a look at
> the M$ link you mailed me ther other day. I don't really get
> this; this is a development platform for ODBC... will I be
> working on Windows or Linux? I prefer Linux to be honest once
> I've managed to get everything up and running (psqlODBC,
> PG7.4.2 and unixODBC2.2.8). Also I haven't got a clue about
> installing PostgreSQL on Windows.

The Microsoft link I sent is to the SDK I mentioned above. The docs in
the SDK are in compiled HTML Help format. You can work on either Windows
or Linux, however you will probably need Windows somewhere to get the
docs out of the SDK, and certainly to run the test utilities (you might
have some success running them under Wine, but it might skew the
results). Perhaps Qemu or Vmware would be of help if you wish to run
both in the long term.

Alternatively, once you've extracted the docs, you should be able to
read them on Linux using something like: http://xchm.sourceforge.net/.
Other test tools can be written using gcc of course.

> How about producing some
> regression tests for conformance?

Yes, if you can develop an automated test suite, that would be
excellent.

Regards, Dave.