$Id: README.freetds,v 1.2 2003/04/03 19:07:00 mpeppler Exp $

Using DBD::Sybase with FreeTDS
==============================

DBD::Sybase 1.00 or later works reasonably well with FreeTDS 0.61,
but some capabilities are limited or not available.

Build process:
--------------

FreeTDS normally installs in /usr/local, with the libraries in 
/usr/local/lib and the include files in /usr/local/include. This
location is assumed below.

To build DBD::Sybase you need to set the SYBASE environment variable
to /usr/local. When you now run "perl Makefile.PL" you will get
warnings for a few missing libraries:
	Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lcs
	Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsybtcl
	Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lcomn
	Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lintl
This is OK because FreeTDS doesn't package the functions in the
same libraries as Sybase.

The "make test" process will fail for a number of tests:

Failed Test Stat Wstat Total Fail  Failed  List of Failed
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
t/exec.t       0   139    ??   ??       %  ??
t/main.t                  16    2  12.50%  13-14
t/xblob.t                  6    2  33.33%  5-6
13 subtests skipped.

This is expected.

Missing Features:
-----------------

* ?-style placeholders are not supported.
* Setting $dbh->{LongReadLen} doesn't work
  Use $dbh->do("set textsize <value>") instead.
* The special text/image handling functions don't work
  (i.e. ct_fetch_data(), etc).
* The $dbh->{syb_row_count} attribute doesn't work.
  Use $dbh->do("set rowcount <value>") instead.
* The $dbh->{syb_quoted_identifier} attribute doesn't work.
  Use $dbh->do("set quoted_identifier <value>") instead.

Bugs:
-----

FreeTDS 0.61 has a bug when executing queries that return 0 rows, 
which manifests itself when trying to do a fetchrow_hashref()
after such a query with the following error:

    Can't get DBI::st=HASH(0x811cfa8)->{NAME}: unrecognised attribute at...

This is fixed in the 0.62-dev version of FreeTDS.