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20.1.2 Connector/ODBC Introduction »
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20.1.1. Connector/ODBC Versions

There are currently two version of Connector/ODBC available:

  • Connector/ODBC 5.1, currently in GA status, is a partial rewrite of the of the 3.51 code base and is designed to work with all versions of MySQL from 4.1. Connector/ODBC 5.1 will be a complete implementation of the ODBC Core interface,plus more Level 1 and Level 2 functionality of the ODBC specification than that currently supported by Connector/ODBC 3.51. See Section 20.1.2.1, “Connector/ODBC Roadmap”.

    Connector/ODBC 5.1 also includes the following changes and improvements over the 3.51 release:

    • Improved support on Windows 64-bit platforms.

    • Full Unicode support at the driver level. This includes support for the SQL_WCHAR datatype, and support for Unicode login, password and DSN configurations. For more information,. see Microsoft Knowledgebase Article #716246.

    • Support for the SQL_NUMERIC_STRUCT datatype, which provides easier access to the precise definition of numeric values. For more information, see Microsoft Knowledgebase Article #714556

    • Native Windows setup library. This replaces the Qt library based interface for configuring DSN information within the ODBC Data Sources application.

    • Support for the ODBC descriptor, which improves the handling and metadata of columns and parameter data. For more information, see Microsoft Knowledgebase Article #716339.

  • Connector/ODBC 3.51 is the current release of the 32-bit ODBC driver, also known as the MySQL ODBC 3.51 driver. Connector/ODBC 3.51 has support for ODBC 3.5x specification level 1 (complete core API + level 2 features) in order to continue to provide all functionality of ODBC for accessing MySQL.

The manual for versions of Connector/ODBC older than 3.51 can be located in the corresponding binary or source distribution. Please note that versions of Connector/ODBC earlier than the 3.51 revision were not fully compliant with the ODBC specification.

Note

Development on Connector/ODBC 5.0 was stopped due to development issues. Connector/ODBC 5.1 is now the current development release.

Note

From this section onward, the primary focus of this guide is the Connector/ODBC 3.51 and Connector/ODBC 5.1 drivers.

Note

Version numbers for MySQL products are formatted as X.X.X. However, Windows tools (Control Panel, properties display) may show the version numbers as XX.XX.XX. For example, the official MySQL formatted version number 5.0.9 may be displayed by Windows tools as 5.00.09. The two versions are the same; only the number display format is different.