When connected to a Unicode database, the Sybase Wire Protocol driver supports Unicode data types listed in the following table, in addition to standard ODBC data types listed in Table 12-2.
On Sybase 12.5 servers, this data type is available only if the data source is configured to use the UTF-8 character set. On Sybase 12.5.1 and higher servers, this data type is always available, even if the data source is not configured to use the UTF-8 character set.
For data types that require the UTF-8 character set, set the Charset connection string attribute. See “Charset” for information about using this connection string attribute.The driver supports the Unicode ODBC W (Wide) function calls, such as SQLConnectW. This allows the Driver Manager to transmit these calls directly to the driver. Otherwise, the Driver Manager would incur the additional overhead of converting the W calls to ANSI function calls, and vice versa.See “UTF-16 Applications on UNIX and Linux” for related details. Also, refer to Chapter 4 “Internationalization, Localization, and Unicode” in the DataDirect Connect Series for ODBC Reference for a more detailed explanation of Unicode.