DBD::ODBC 1.14_1 developer release

I have put together a developer release of DBD::ODBC version 1.14_1.
This is very experimental at the moment but I'd appreciate any feedback.
The principle new feature is some Unicode support for bound columns and
parameters (thanks Alexander Foken). The Unicode support is on by
default for Windows and off by default for other platforms (see the
README.unicode file in the distribution for details as there are a
number of caveats). This release also includes a large number of other
changes which I've listed below. I've tested it on Linux/X86,
Solaris/Sparc and Windows/X86 with various drivers and the Microsoft and
unixODBC driver managers but any reports of success or failure will be
welcome. You can find this developer release at the following URL:

ftp://ftp.easysoft.com/pub/DBD-ODBC-1.14_1.tar.gz

When things settle down I'll look at making a full 1.14 cpan release.

Changes since 1.13:

Fix bug reported where ping crashes after disconnect thanks to Steffen
Goeldner.

Fix bug in dbd_bind_ph which leads to the error Can't change param 1
maxlen (51->50) after first bind in the 20SqlServer test. This is
caused by svGROW in Perl 5.8.8 being changed to possibly grow by more
than you asked (e.g. up to the next longword boundary).

Fix problem with binding undef as an output parameter. Reported by
Stephen More with IBM's ODBC driver for iSeries.

Removed comment delimiters in comments in dbdimp.h leading to warnings.

Removed some unused variable declarations leading to warnings.

Removed PerlIO_flush calls as it is believed they are not required.

Add logging for whether SQLDescribeParam is supported.

Fixed use of unitialised variable in dbd_bind_ph where an undef is
bound and tracing is enabled.

Fixed issue with TRACESTATUS change in 20SqlServer.t tests 28, 31, 32
and 33 leading to those tests failing when testing with SQL Server
2005 or Express.

Many compiler warnings fixed - especially for incompatible types.

Add provisional Unicode support - thanks to Alexander Foken. This
change is very experimental (especially on UNIX). Please see ODBC.pm
documentation. Also see README.unicode and README.af. New database
attribute odbc_has_unicode to test if DBD::ODBC was built with UNICODE
support. New tests for Unicode. New requirement for Perl 5.8.1 if
Unicode support required. New -[no]u argument to Makefile.PL. New
warning in Makefile.PL if Unicode support built for UNIX.

Fix use of unitialised var in Makefile.PL.

Fix use of scalar with no effect on Makefile.PL

Added warning to Makefile.PL about building/running with LANG using
UTF8.

Added warning to Makefile.PL about using thread-safe ODBC drivers.

Updated MANIFEST to include more test code from mytest and remove
MANIFEST.SKIP etc.

Martin
--
Martin J. Evans
Easysoft Limited
http://www.easysoft.com