Datatype translation issues

If you use the heterogeneous datatype support (HDS) feature of Replication Server to perform either column- or class-level translations on replicated data, you must perform datatype translations on the subscription data you unload from the primary database for materialization:

• If any column-level translation is specified in a replication definition for the data, you must perform the datatype translation specified in each replication definition for the primary data.

• If class-level translations are specified for the database connection to a replicate database (in the function-string class for the database connection), you must perform the datatype translations specified for each replicate database connection.

Datatype definitions are specified in scripts provided with Replication Server. These scripts define the attributes of the non-Sybase database native datatypes in terms of Replication Server native datatypes. You can use the datatype definitions in these scripts to determine how to translate the datatypes in the subscription data that you unload from the primary database.

Following are the scripts that support non-Sybase data servers:

• hds_db2_udds.sql – DB2 Universal Database on IBM z/OS platforms

• hds_udb_udds.sql – DB2 Universal Database on UNIX and Windows platforms

• hds_msss_udds.sql – Microsoft SQL Server

• hds_oracle_udds.sql – Oracle

Class-level translations identify primary database native datatypes and the replicate database native datatypes that data should be translated into. (For example, Oracle DATE should be translated to DB2 TIMESTAMP.)

A set of scripts is provided with Replication Server for each combination of supported primary and replicate data servers. For example, the following scripts are provided for DB2 UDB as a replicate database:

• hds_clt_ase_to_db2.sql – translations for Adaptive Server datatypes to DB2 datatypes.

• hds_clt_msss_to_db2.sql – translations for Microsoft SQL Server datatypes to DB2 datatypes.

• hds_clt_oracle_to_db2.sql – translations for Oracle datatypes to DB2 datatypes.

You can use the datatype translations specified in these scripts to determine how to translate the datatypes in the subscription data that you unload from the primary database.