Progress
DataServer
for ODBC Guide


Case Sensitivity

By default, a Progress database is case insensitive; however, you can set the attributes of a field to define it as either case sensitive or case insensitive. If you intend to do this, consider the following:

If an indexed field is case insensitive, Progress does not distinguish between uppercase and lowercase letters for that index when sorting or matching data. In general, this flexibility in an application makes data entry easier for end users because they can enter lowercase or uppercase versions of an index. However, if you want to enforce an uppercase/lowercase distinction in your applications, set the attribute to case sensitive.

The DataServer makes this feature compatible across Progress and ODBC data sources. Case insensitivity for indexes is particularly useful when migrating Progress applications to run with an ODBC data source. To support it, an extra column must be added to the data source immediately before the indexed column. In most cases, this column is named _S#_column (exceptions are noted in the following sections). See the "Adding Extended 4GL Support" section in "The DataServer Tutorial," for instructions on adding this column automatically with the Pro-to-ODBC utility for Sybase and Microsoft SQL Server 6.5.

Specific ODBC data sources handle case sensitivity as described in the following sections.

DB2

DB2 is case sensitive. Be sure to consider case sensitivity when you perform comparisons (equals or matches).

Informix

The DataServer assumes case sensitivity since ODBC does not allow you to determine case. This might affect how records are sorted and the order in which they are returned to the Progress client. Be sure to consider case sensitivity when you perform comparisons (equals or matches).

In Informix, the column that you add to the data source to support case insensitivity for indexes is named _S__column rather than _S#_column. This is because Informix does not allow the pound sign in object names.

Microsoft Access

Microsoft Access is not case sensitive. This might affect how records are sorted and the order in which they are returned to the Progress client. Be sure to consider case sensitivity when you perform comparisons (equals or matches).

Microsoft SQL Server 6.5

For Microsoft SQL Server 6.5, the System Administrator sets case sensitivity at the SQL Server level. The default sort order in SQL Server is not case sensitive.

Sybase

For Sybase, the System Administrator sets case sensitivity at the Sybase level.


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