00661: Information on the ODBC code translator option

Title:

Information on the ODBC code translator option

Description:

The translator option is located under the ADVANCED option for the BASIS ODBC driver. It uses the Microsoft Code Page Translator. It’s purpose is to map old PC or UNIX character sets to the new Windows ANSI standard. Microsoft distributes the Translator and several mapping tables. 

The translator maps an older character set, i.e. PC8, particularly for European Characters, into the newer definition. A file written in ASCII under UNIX in Germany typically was written using a code page that is different on Windows. So, the specific German characters, which displayed properly under the UNIX system, now come up as garbage under Windows. In order to display them correctly, the code page translator uses a user defined (or Microsoft supplied) table that maps the old code page to the new and vice versa. 

The Translate button in the Advanced section of the BASIS ODBC Driver Data Source setup will bring up a window in which you are asked what translation mechanism you want to use. Unless there are additional translators installed on your system, there are two presented, “None”, or the “Microsoft Code Page Translator”. 

Selecting the “Microsoft Code Page Translator” will give a list of tables available to the translator. The tables are easily edited by someone who knows the language involved and the format of a code page (the ASCII table is a code page). 

Resolution:

As part of the connection process, the BASIS ODBC Driver loads the translation. (That is the DLL file name if one has been specified). Once loaded, all data sent from the BASIS ODBC Driver to the application will be translated using the translation DLL. All data written back to the physical files in the data source will be translated back to the native code page using the character set the data was written in originally. 

Additional information can be the On-Line manual for the ODBC driver. 

Last Modified: 07/10/1998 Product: BASIS ODBC Driver Operating System: Windows

BASIS structures five components of their technology into the BBx Generations.