Status of MySQL Connector/ODBC

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Status of MySQL Connector/ODBC:

Based on your feedback and requests, below is a status update on MySQL
Connector/ODBC.

People
======

Peter Harvey is the Lead Developer for Connector/ODBC. Peter has been
working on Connector/ODBC since February, 2004. Previoulsy, Peter was
one of the key developers of UnixODBC.

Bogdan Degtyariov is the Support Engineer for Connector/ODBC. Bogdan
joined MySQL in May, 2005.

I am Mark Mathews, and I manage the team that is responsible for
developing all the MySQL Drivers including Connector/ODBC,
Connector/JDBC and Connector/NET. I also happen to be the Lead
Developer of Connector/JDBC.


Development Roadmap for MyODBC 3.51
===================================

In regards to the problematic ODBC-3.51, there is a 3.51.12 in the
pipeline that fixes the bugs that many of you deal with, and it has
undergone testing w/ partners and customers.

While no excuse for the shape that 3.51 has been in the past year, Peter
inherited a nearly 18-month backlog of bugs and support issues that he's
just finally finished digging out of.

Our plan for 3.51 is to try and get 3.51.12 out by August. There's
currently a test build available...

Windows:

ftp://ftp.mysql.com/pub/mysql/hidden/connectors/odbc/3.51.12 /MyODBC-3.51.12-win32.exe

Linux (for UnixODBC):

ftp://ftp.mysql.com/pub/mysql/hidden/connectors/odbc/3.51.12 /MyODBC-3.51.12-pc-linux-i686.tar.gz

This test build should fix the following issues:
bug#8363 - 3.51.11 incorrectly describes Date field (notice this might
require an MDAC upgrade/hotfix on some platforms, see
http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=8363)

bug#9211 - Access: ODBC - Update on a linked table table_name failed
bug#5681 - Fetching time fields as SQL_C_TIME or SQL_C_TYPE_TIME is broken
bug#9550 - Char and varchar column sizes returned as -1, can't import
data from MS-SQL DTS

As well as:

- - fix for connect error "catastrophic failure" in ADO/VB
- - fix for connect failure via MS Access link tables

We are planning to have at least one more test build to cover the
following issues before a release of 3.51.12 in early August:

- - Support new MySQL-5.0 datatypes, including true decimal types
- - Debug logging/tracing fixed to work w/ new GUI

The location to download this test build will be posted to this mailing
list and the ODBC forum.


Development Roadmap for Connector/ODBC 5.0
==========================================

This is a ground-up rewrite of the MyODBC driver to support MySQL 5.0.
After looking at what we could fix in 3.51 to make it support some core
parts of the ODBC specification (such as descriptors), support tools
like MS Access without a bunch of workarounds, as well as support
features in MySQL server 5.0 and beyond, we had to make a tough decision
not to build on a shaky foundation for the future.

Hopefully you've been following the bk-commits on MyODBC-3.53 (which is
now named Connector/ODBC 5.0, as we're synchronizing the version #'s of
all connectors we ship with the major version of the server they support).

We're planning to have an alpha release of Connector/ODBC 5.0 within the
next two weeks. Watch this mailing list for announcements.

The very rough schedule of release for Connector/ODBC 5.0 looks like this:

- - July 18 - Alpha (basic functionality, should mostly work w/ Access and
other third-party applications)

(Alpha releases on Windows, Linux, Solaris each week until Beta)

- - Mid August - Beta on majority of platforms we support, with unicode
support rolled in. We have very preliminary unicode support internally
(supporting the "W" variant of the ODBC API), but only key functions for
Windows are supported at this point in time.

(Beta releases each week on Windows, Linux, Solaris until release candidate)

- - September (based on feedback and bug inflow) - release candidate and
then release on all platforms where we support ODBC.

Mailing Lists and Forums
===================================

Please participate in our Mailing Lists and Forums.
http://forums.mysql.com/list.php?37
http://lists.mysql.com/myodbc

Peter and Bogdan will be there to listen to your issues and inform you
about the progress we are making with Connector/ODBC.

Regards,

-Mark
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