Supported Adaptive Server datatypes – PB Docs 2019

The Adaptive Server interface supports the SAP datatypes listed in
the following table in DataWindow objects and embedded SQL.

In Adaptive Server 15.0 and later, PowerBuilder supports unsigned as
well as signed bigint, int, and smallint datatypes. You can also use the
following datatypes as identity columns in Adaptive Server 15.0 and later:
bigint, int, numeric, smallint, tinyint, unsigned bigint, unsigned int,
and unsigned smallint.

Accessing Unicode data

PowerBuilder can connect, save, and retrieve data in both ANSI/DBCS
and Unicode databases. When character data or command text is sent to the
database, PowerBuilder sends a DBCS string if the UTF8 database parameter
is set to 0 (the default). If UTF8 is set to 1, PowerBuilder sends a UTF-8
string. The database server must be configured correctly to accept UTF-8
strings. See the description of the UTF8 database parameter in the section called “UTF8” in Connection Reference.

The character set used by an Adaptive Server database server applies
to all databases on that server. The nchar and nvarchar datatypes can
store UTF-8 data if the server character set is UTF-8. The Unicode
datatypes unichar and univarchar were introduced in Adaptive Server 12.5
to support 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.

In Adaptive Server 12.5.1 and later, additional support for Unicode
data has been added. For more information, see the documentation for your
version of Adaptive Server.

Different display values in
painters

The unichar and univarchar datatypes support UTF-16 encoding,
therefore each unichar or univarchar character requires two bytes of
storage. The following example creates a table with one unichar column
holding 10 Unicode characters:

In the Database painter, the column displays as unichar(20)because
the column requires 20 bytes of storage. This is consistent with the way
the column displays in SAP Central.

However, the mapping between the Type in the Column Specifications
view in the DataWindow painter and the column datatype of a table in the
database is not one-to-one. The Type in the Column Specifications view
shows the DataWindow column datatype and DataWindow column length. The
column length is the number of characters, therefore an Adaptive Server
unichar(20)column displays as char(10) in the Column Specifications
view.

Column-length limits

Adaptive Server 12.5 and earlier have a column-length limit of 255
bytes. Adaptive Server 12.5.x and later support wider columns for Char,
VarChar, Binary, and VarBinary datatypes, depending on the logical page
size and the locking scheme used by the server.

In PowerBuilder, you can use these wider columns for Char and
VarChar datatypes with Adaptive Server 12.5.x when the following
conditions apply:

The database must be configured to use a larger page size to take
full advantage of the widest limits.

For more information about the Release database parameter, see
“Release database parameter”.

When you retrieve or update columns, PowerBuilder converts data
appropriately between the Adaptive Server datatype and the PowerScript
datatype. Similarly or identically named Adaptive Server and PowerScript
datatypes do not necessarily have the same definitions. For information
about the definitions of PowerScript datatypes, see the PowerScript
Reference.

Conversion in PowerBuilder
scripts

A double that has no fractional component is converted to a string
with one decimal place if the converted string would cause Adaptive Server
to have an overflow error when parsing the string. For example: the double
value 12345678901234 would cause an overflow error, so PowerBuilder
converts the double to the string value 12345678901234.0.