NEWS.md

odbc (development version)

• Transitioned to the cli package for formatting most error messages (@simonpcouch, #781, #784, #785, #788).

• databricks() will now automatically configure the needed driver and driver manager on macOS (#651).

• Snowflake: Improved performance on write (#760).

• Adjusted the default batch_rows value for dbWriteTable() and dbBind() methods. odbc 1.3.0 changed the default value from 1024 to NA, which sets the batch size to be the length of the input. While this addressed issues for some drivers when 1024 was greater than the number of rows, it also led to excessive memory consumption when the input was very large for some other drivers. The package will now interpet NA as the minimum of 1024 and the length of the input (@simonpcouch, #774).

• odbc now always converts the encoding of non-ASCII column names of the SQL results to UTF-8. (@shrektan, #430)

• Fixed issue that odbc may throw errors with garbage letters when the encoding of client and db-server are different. (@shrektan, #432)

• dbListFields: Now works with DBI::Id and DBI::SQL identifiers.

• Transitioned odbcDataType() to use S4 for consistency. S3 methods defined locally will need to be rewritten (#701).

• Teradata: Resolved issue when previewing tables using the Connections pane.

• The "OdbcConnection" method for dbQuoteIdentifier() will no longer pass x to encodeString() before returning, for consistency with the default implementation in DBI (@simonpcouch, #765).

odbc 1.4.2

• dbAppendTable() Improve performance by checking existence once (#691).

• dbConnect() no longer automatically escapes suspicious characters (since there doesn't seem to be a consistent way to do this across drivers) but instead points you to quote_value() which applies a heuristic that should work for most drivers (#718).

• New wrapper for dbExecute() that sets immediate = TRUE if you are not supplying params. That should yield a small speed boost in many cases (#706).

• dbSendQuery() once again defaults to immediate = FALSE (since if you're using it instead of dbGetQuery() you're likely to be using it with dbBind()). (#726).

• Deprecated odbcConnectionColumns() (in favor of dbListFields()), odbcConnectionActions(), and odbcConnectionIcon() (@simonpcouch, #699).

• Backend specific changes:

  • databricks: Fix schema enumeration in connections pane (@detule, #715).

  • Oracle: use more reliable technique to determine user/schema name (#738), and fix dbExistsTable() when identifier components contain _ (@detule, #712).

  • SQL Server: improvements to dbExists() (@meztez, #724) and dbListTables() (@simonpcouch, #509) for temporary tables. It now uses column type "BIGINT" integer64 objects.

  • SQL Server with freetds driver: no longer crashes when executing multiple queries (@detule, #731).

  • Teradata: Fix usage of exact argument in internal methods (@detule, 717).

• On MacOS and Linux, the package will now automatically set the ODBCSYSINI environmental variable when using the unixODBC driver manager. ODBCSYSINI will not be changed if it exists already (@simonpcouch, #709).

odbc 1.4.1

• New odbcListConfig() lists configuration files on Mac and Linux (@simonpcouch, #565).

• databricks() now works with manually supplied pwd and uid (#690).

• Oracle: uses correct parent class (#685).

• SQL Server: correctly enumerate schemas across databases in connections pane (@detule, #527).

odbc 1.4.0

Major changes

• New odbc::databricks() makes it easier to connect to Databricks, automatically handling many common authentication scenarios (@atheriel, #615).

• dbListTables(), dbListFields() and dbExistsTable() automatically escape underscores in identifier arguments. This leads to substantial performance improvements for some backends (e.g. snowflake) (@detule, @fh-afrachioni, #618).

• dbGetQuery() and dbSendQuery() now set immediate = TRUE if you are not using a parameterised query. That should yield a small speed boost in many cases (#633).

Minor improvements and bug fixes

• Increased the minimum required R version from 3.2.0 to 3.6.0 (@simonpcouch, #629).

• S4 classes for the most database drivers are now exported, make it possible to use in other packages (#558).

• ODBC errors are now spread across multiple lines, making them easier to read (@detule, #564).

• DBI::dbConnect(odbc::odbc()) now gives a clear error if you supply multiple arguments with the same name when case is ignored (#641).

• DBI::dbConnect(odbc::odbc()) now automatically quotes argument values that need it (#616).

Driver specific changes

• Oracle: Fix regression when falling back to odbcConnectionColumns() to describe column data types (@detule, #587)

• Spark SQL: Correctly enumerate schemas away from the current catalog (@detule, #614)

• Snowflake: improved translation from R to snowflake types (@meztez, #599).

• SQL Server

  • Improved handling for local temp tables in dbWrite(), dbAppendTable(), and dbExistTable() (@detule, #600)

  • Specialize syntax in sqlCreateTable to avoid failures when writing to (new) local temp tables. (@detule, #601)

• Teradata: Improved handling for temp tables (@detule and @But2ene, #589, 590)

odbc 1.3.5

• Various fixes for R CMD check.

• The argument order for sqlCreateTable() methods avoiding weird argument mismatch problems (#448).

• Fixed truncation when retrieving unicode data stored in VAR/CHAR columns (@detule, #553).

• Fixed issue related to fetching zero rows (@detule, #528).

• Backend specific improvements:

  • MYSQL: Fixed retrieving results from stored procedures (@detule, #435).
  • Oracle: performance enhancements (#577)
  • Spark: Changed data type for date-times from DATE to TIMESTAMP (@schuemie, #555).

odbc 1.3.4

• Optimized table preview methods. Enhances large table preview within RStudio IDE (@detule, #525).

• Added attributes parameter to dbConnect(...). Can be used to pass a token and authenticate against Azure AD when using Microsoft SQL Server. Documented in ?ConnectionAttributes (@detule, #521).

• Fix length(x) = 3 > 1' in coercion to 'logical(1) warning in connection observer (@meztez, #494).

odbc 1.3.3

• Hadley Wickham is now the maintainer.

odbc 1.3.2

• New odbcDataType.Snowflake() method for Snowflake databases. (@edgararuiz, #451)

odbc 1.3.1

• Fixed warnings about anonymous unions (@detule, #440)
• Fixed invalid descriptor issues when retrieving results from SQL Server + Microsoft's ODBC driver, using parametrized queries. (@detule, #414)
• Fixed null handling in SQL Server / Azure result sets retrieved with Microsoft's ODBC driver. (@detule, #408)
• Hive uses C-style escaping for string literals (single quotes are backslash-escaped, note single quote-escaped). dbQuoteString now respects this when called on a connection of class Hive. (@rnorberg, #184)
• When calling sqlCreateTable(con, ..., temporary = TRUE) and con is a connection of class DB2/AIX64, the CREATE TABLE statement that is generated properly creates a temporary table in DB2. The statement begins with DECLARE GLOBAL TEMPORARY TABLE and ends with ON COMMIT PRESERVE ROWS (DB2's default behavior is ON COMMIT DELETE ROWS, which results in the inserted data being deleted as soon as dbWriteTable completes). (@rnorberg, #426)
• Fixed RStudio Connections Pane when working with a database that has only one catalog or one schema. (@meztez, #444)

odbc 1.3.0

Major changes

• odbc can now be compiled again with Rtools35 (gcc 4.9.3) on Windows (#383)
• invalid descriptor errors from drivers such as Microsoft SQLServer driver and the freeTDS driver which do not support out of order retrieval are now avoided. This is done by unbinding any nanodbc buffer past the long column. Performance for the unbound columns in these cases will be reduced, but the retrieval will work without error (@detule, #381)
• dbBind() and dbFetch() now support multiple result sets (@vkapartzianis, #345)

Minor improvements and fixes

• New dbAppendTable() method for OdbcConnection objects (#335)
• dbQuoteIdentifier() now uses the input names (if any).
• dbWriteTable() and dbBind() now default to a batch_rows of NA, which sets the batch size to be the length of the input. This avoids problems with drivers that don't support batch sizes larger than the input size. To restore the behavior prior to this release pass batch_rows = 1024 or set options(odbc.batch_rows = 1024) (#391).
• dbWriteTable() now handles data.table::IDate() objects (#388)
• dbWriteTable(field.types=) now issues a warning rather than an error for missing columns (#342)
• odbcConnectionColumns() now works as intended with DBI::Id() objects (#389)
• dbFetch() now verifies that n is a valid input.
• Dates are now always interpreted as being in the database's local time zone, regardless of the timezone parameter (#398)
• Oracle connections now support Date and POSIXct types via DATE and TIMESTAMP data types (#324, #349, #350)
• Oracle connections now use VARCHAR2 rather than VARCHAR, as recommended by Oracle's documentation (#189)

odbc 1.2.3

• dbWriteTable() now executes immediately, which fixes issues with temporary tables and the FreeTDS SQL Server driver (@krlmlr).

• blob roundtrips now work in more cases (#364, @krlmlr).

• The BH dependency has been removed (#326)

odbc 1.2.2

• The configure script now again uses iodbc-config on macOS, if available.

• Fix errors with drivers who do not fully implement SQLGetInfo (#325).

odbc 1.2.1

• Fix the unicode character width issues with the macOS odbc CRAN binary. (#283)

• The configure script now works on systems whose /bin/sh does not support command substitution, such as Solaris 10.

odbc 1.2.0

Features

• sqlCreateTable() and dbWriteTable() now throw an error if you mistakenly include field.types names which do not exist in the input data. (#271)

• The error message when trying to write tables with unsupported types now includes the column name (#238).

• dbConnect() now has a new param timezone_out which is useful if the user wants the datetime values be marked with a specific timezone instead of UTC (@shrektan, #294).

• dbGetQuery(), dbSendQuery() and dbSendStatement() gain a immediate argument to execute the statement or query immediately instead of preparing, then executing the statement. (#272, @krlmlr)

• dbGetQuery(), dbSendQuery() and dbSendStatement() gain a params argument, which allows them to be used (indirectly) by DBI::dbAppendTable() (#210, #215, #261).

• dbWriteTable() and dbBind() methods gain a batch_rows argument, to control how many rows are bound in each batch. The default can be set globally with options(odbc.batch_rows). This is useful if your database performs better with a larger or smaller number of rows per batch than the default of 1024. (#297)

• New odbcConnectionColumns() function to describe the column types. This data is used when binding columns, which allows drivers which do not support the SQLDescribeParam() ODBC function, such as freeTDS to work better with bound columns. (#313, @detule)

• Added a Teradata odbcDataType() to support writing logical data to Teradata servers (#240, @blarj09).

• Added a Access odbcDataType() method to support writing to Access databases (#262, @vh-d)

• odbcListDrivers() gains a keep and filter argument and global options odbc.drivers_keep, odbc.drivers_filter to keep and filter the drivers returned. This is useful if system administrators want to reduce the number of drivers shown to users. (@blairj09, #274)

• Subseconds are now retained when inserting POSIXct objects (#130, #208)

• The RStudio Connections Pane now shows the DSN, when available (#304, @davidchall).

Bugfixes

• SQL Server ODBC's now supports the '-155' data type, and its losing sub-second precision on timestamps; this still returns type DATETIMEOFFSET as a character, but it preserves sub-seconds and has a numeric timezone offset (@r2evans, #207).

• dbExistsTable() now handles the case-sensitivity consistently as other methods (@shrektan, #285).

• dbExistsTable() now works for SQL Server when specifying schemas but not catalogs using the freeTDS and Simba drivers. (#197)

• DBI::dbListFields() no longer fails when used with a a qualified Id object (using both schema and table) (#226).

• dbWriteTable() now always writes NA_character as NULL for data.frame with only one row (@shrektan, #288).

• Fix an issue that the date value fetched from the database may be one day before its real value (@shrektan, #295).

odbc 1.1.6

Features

• dbConnect() gains a timeout parameter, to control how long a connection should be attempted before timing out (#139).

• Full schema support using Id objects available in DBI 0.8 (#91, #120).

Bugfixes

• SQL inputs are always converted to database encoding before querying (#179).

odbc 1.1.5

• Fix the return value for dbQuoteIdentifier() when given a length 0 input (#146 @edgararuiz).

odbc 1.1.4

Features

• Add custom sqlCreateTable and dbListTables method for Teradata connections (#121, @edgararuiz).

• Add dbms.name parameter to dbConnect() to allow the user to set the database management system name in cases it cannot be queried from the Driver (#115, @hoxo-m).

Bugfixes

• Fix multiple transactions with rollback (#136).

• Fix translation of missing values for integer types (#119).

• Update PIC flags to avoid portability concerns.

odbc 1.1.3

• Small patch to fix install errors on CRAN's MacOS machines.

odbc 1.1.2

• Add bigint parameter to dbConnect() to allow the user to set the behavior when converting 64 bit integers into R types.

• Fixes for compatibility with the RStudio Connections pane and viewer. (@jmcphers).

• Define BUILD_REAL_64_BIT_MODE for compatibility with older systems sql.h, to ensure we always use 8 byte pointers.

• Added temporary-table support for Oracle database using a custom sqlCreateTable (#99, @edgararuiz).

• Fix regression when binding due to the num_columns variable not being updated by odbc_result::bind_list().

• Support table creation for Vertica and Redshift (#93, @khotilov).

• Changed parameter fieldTypes to field.types in functions dbWriteTable() and sqlCreateTable() to be compliant with DBI (#106, @jschelbert).

• dbSendStatement no longer executes the statement, this is instead done when dbBind() or dbGetRowsAffected() is called. This change brings ODBC into compliance with the DBI specification for dbSendStatement() (#84, @ruiyiz).

odbc 1.1.1

• Workaround for drivers which do not implement SQLGetInfo, such as the Access driver (#78).

• Fix for installation error for systems without GNU Make as the default make, such as Solaris.

odbc 1.1.0

• Provide a fall backs for drivers which do not support SQLDescribeParam and those which do not support transactions.

• sqlCreateTable() gains a fieldTypes argument, which allows one to override a column type for a given table, if the default type is not appropriate.

• Support for databases with non UTF-8 encodings. Use the encoding parameter to dbConnect() to specify the database encoding.

• Support for the SQL Connection Pane in the RStudio IDE.

• Unknown fields no longer throw a warning, instead they signal a custom condition, which can be caught if desired with

  withCallingHandlers(expr, odbc_unknown_field_type = function(e) {...} )

• Conversion to and from timezones is handled by the cctz library. If the database is in a non-UTC timezone it can be specified with the timezone parameter to dbConnect().

• Time objects are converted to and from hms objects.

• 64 bit integers are converted to and from bit64 objects.

• Support table creation for Impala and Hive Databases (#38, @edgararuiz).

odbc 1.0.1

• Fixes for the CRAN build machines

  • Do not force c++14 on windows
  • Turn off database tests on CRAN, as I think they will be difficult to debug even if databases are supported.

• Added a NEWS.md file to track changes to the package.

odbc 1.0.0

• Initial odbc release