What's new in Easysoft ODBC-JDBC Gateway 2.x

Unicode support

This release of the Easysoft ODBC-JDBC Gateway allows Unicode-ready applications such as Microsoft Access to display and modify Unicode data stored in Java databases.

The ODBC-JDBC Gateway is a Unicode driver that supports "W" (wide) ODBC function calls. Using a Unicode driver with a Unicode application removes the need for the ODBC Driver Manager to map Unicode functions and data types to ANSI. This results in better performance and removes the restrictions inherent in the Unicode to ANSI mappings.

Scrollable result sets

The ODBC-JDBC Gateway now supports scrollable cursors, enabling applications to move backward as well as forward through a result set.

XA support

The ODBC-JDBC Gateway is an XA Resource Manager that enables a Transaction Manager to enlist database resources in a distributed transaction by using XA-compliant JDBC drivers. For example, the Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle JDBC drivers can be used to access those databases in the context of a distributed transaction.

A distributed transaction is a set of one or more related transactions that must be coordinated in such a way that guarantees all transactions either commit or roll back together. For example, a distributed transaction might consist of a money transfer between two bank accounts, hosted by different banks, and so also on different databases. You would not want either transaction committed without a guarantee that both will complete successfully.

Note that to be involved in a distributed transaction, the target JDBC driver must implement the XA features of the JDBC 2.0 Optional Package.

For more information about the ODBC-JDBC Gateway's XA support, refer to the ODBC-JDBC Gateway documentation.

New ODBC API call

The ODBC-JDBC Gateway now implements the SQLMoreResults ODBC API call provided that support for this function is available in the target JDBC driver. For more information about the ODBC-JDBC Gateway's ODBC support, refer to ODBC Conformance.

Enhanced HSQLDB support

The ODBC-JDBC Gateway now supports the BIT JDBC data type and its JDBC 3.0 equivalent BOOLEAN. The JDBC data types are mapped to the ODBC type SQL_BIT.

Setting JVM configuration options

The ODBC-JDBC Gateway now lets you configure the JVM to match the requirements of the target JDBC driver. For example, make more memory available to the JDBC driver by increasing the maximum Java heap size with the -Xmx JVM option. For more information about specifying JVM options, refer to the ODBC-JDBC Gateway documentation.

Fixes and workarounds

A number of minor problems have been fixed. These are listed in CHANGES.txt, included in the ODBC-JDBC Gateway distribution.