The DirectConnect interface uses Sybase’s Open Client CT-Library (CT-Lib) API to access a database through Sybase middleware data access products such as the DirectConnect for OS/390 component of MainFrame Connect and Open ServerConnect™.
DataWindow Designer can connect, save, and retrieve data in both ANSI/DBCS and Unicode databases. When character data or command text is sent to the database, DataWindow Designer sends a DBCS string if the UTF8 database parameter is set to 0 (the default). If UTF8 is set to 1, DataWindow Designer sends a UTF-8 string.
The database server must have the UTF-8 character set installed. See the description of the UTF-8 database parameter in the online Help for more information.
A Unicode database is a database whose character set is set to a Unicode format, such as UTF-8, UTF-16, UCS-2, or UCS-4. All data must be in Unicode format, and any data saved to the database must be converted to Unicode data implicitly or explicitly.
A database that uses ANSI (or DBCS) as its character set might use special datatypes to store Unicode data. Columns with these datatypes can store only Unicode data. Any data saved into such a column must be converted to Unicode explicitly. This conversion must be handled by the database server or client.
