Character set conversion during synchronization

During synchronization, characters may need to be converted from one character set to another. The following conversions occur as characters are passed between the remote application and the consolidated database.

Character set conversion during upload

The MobiLink client sends data to the MobiLink server using the character set of the remote database.

The MobiLink server communicates with the consolidated database using the Unicode ODBC API. To do so, the MobiLink server converts all characters received from the remote database into Unicode and sends the Unicode to the ODBC driver.
If necessary, the ODBC driver for the consolidated database server converts the characters from Unicode into the character set of your consolidated database. This conversion is controlled solely by the ODBC driver for your consolidated database system. So, behavior can differ between two different database systems, particularly systems made by different manufacturers. MobiLink synchronization works with several database systems. Check the documentation of your particular consolidated server and ODBC driver for details.

Character set conversion during download

The ODBC driver for the consolidated database system receives characters in the coding of the consolidated database. It converts these characters into Unicode to pass them through the Unicode API to the MobiLink server. This conversion is controlled solely by the ODBC driver for your consolidated database system. Check the documentation of your particular consolidated server and ODBC driver for details.
The MobiLink server receives characters through the Unicode ODBC API. If the remote database uses a different character set, the MobiLink server converts the characters before downloading them.

Examples

UltraLite applications on Windows Mobile devices use the Unicode character set.

When you synchronize a Windows Mobile application, no character conversion occurs within the MobiLink server. The server finds that data arriving from the application is already in Unicode and passes it directly to the ODBC driver. Similarly, no character set conversion is necessary when downloading data.
All SQL Anywhere databases and all UltraLite applications on platforms other than Windows Mobile use the character set determined by the collating sequence of the remote database.

When you synchronize a remote database, the MobiLink server performs character set conversions between the character set of the remote database and Unicode.

Controlling ODBC driver character set conversion

Discuss this page in DocCommentXchange.