About ADO.NET
ADO.NET is a set of technologies that provides native access to data
in the Microsoft .NET Framework. It is designed to support an n-tier
programming environment and to handle a disconnected data architecture.
ADO.NET is tightly integrated with XML and uses a common data
representation that can combine data from disparate sources, including
XML.
One of the major components of ADO.NET is the .NET Framework data
provider, which connects to a database, executes commands, and retrieves
results.
Microsoft provides .NET Framework data providers for SQL Server and
OLE DB with the .NET Framework, and data providers for ODBC and Oracle can
be downloaded from the Microsoft website. You can also obtain .NET
Framework data providers from other vendors, such as the .NET Framework
Data Provider for Adaptive Server Enterprise from SAP.
To connect to a database using the PowerBuilder ADO.NET database
interface, you must use a .NET Framework data provider.
Accessing Unicode data
Using the ADO.NET interface, PowerBuilder can connect, save, and
retrieve data in both ANSI/DBCS and Unicode databases but does not convert
data between Unicode and ANSI/DBCS. When character data or command text is
sent to the database, PowerBuilder sends a Unicode string. The data
provider must guarantee that the data is saved as Unicode data correctly.
When PowerBuilder retrieves character data, it assumes the data is
Unicode.
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.