I've been pounding my head against a wall for the last couple of days trying to make a "simple" program work (to then use as the basis for future programs, etc. -- in other words, "I'm still just learning this stuff") I'd really like to "point the finger" at Microsoft & visual basic, but I've been around long enough to know that there are too many fingers in this pie to write it off that easily. So, I'm not sure if I've encountered a real "bug", or just a "known issue" for which there may be a workaround -- what I've tried so far hasn't done what I need, and the workaround I *know* will work is a kludge at best: ugly, but functional.
But enough of the background, here is the problem: developing a visual-basic (6) application using myodbc connected to a mysql database on the network. Adding records works well "the first time", but after the database has closed (i.e., "the next time I run the program"), I run into problems. I've tracked it down to what VB "believes" is the maximum field size for a given field, and it appears to be limited to whatever the "longest" value is in the particular field -- when a table is "new" (empty), there are no entries, so VB "thinks" the fields are "-1" in length (technically, "unlimited"), and the program works fine. The next time the program runs, the fields "definedlength" property is set to whatever the "longest" value happens to be in the table (hence the "ugly" workaround is to insert a "bogus" entry with spaces or some filler character padded out to the maximum length -- this is fine for "master" [key] tables, but for detail entries it might become problematic.) I've even tried the "pad char fields to maximum" option via the ODBC driver window in the control panel, but that doesn't seem to have any effect. The version(s) of the various programs is or should be the "latest" -- I just downloaded and installed the vis-studio "service pack 5" & MDAC 2.7 today; the myodbc driver is the "stable" one from the myodbc site [downloaded a couple of days ago]; and mysql itself was installed initially from the SuSE 8.0 distribution & updated accordingly, so it is no more than a month or two old at best. So, is this a "real bug" [for which I should develop a proper repeatable environment/program], a "known issue" [with hopefully a simple solution], or am I simply "doing it wrong" -- within VB there is a query-like program which can retrieve & update arbitrary tables and it CAN enter a new field with longer-than-previous values [and I'm reasonably certain this is a vb/vc++ application], so I know somehow/somewhere this is possible. Another possible part of the wrinkle: I'm developing this using what VB calls a "dataenvironment", and that is the component that seems to have the problem. Another "wizard" within VB is a "data view" window, and that one seems to be able to determine the proper field sizes, but when a table is "drag-n-dropped" from the "data view" window to the "dataenvironment builder" (component), it loses that bit of information about each field. Tom Emerson p.s. although I've posted this to the main "mysql" list, I have a sneaking suspicion this is more appropriate for the "myodbc" list -- if so, please point me that way and I'll take the discussion there :) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Before posting, please check: http://www.mysql.com/manual.php (the manual) http://lists.mysql.com/ (the list archive) To request this thread, e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Trouble unsubscribing? Try: http://lists.mysql.com/php/unsubscribe.php
