PHP, ODBC, and nvarchar

By  on  

I stumbled upon an odd error using PHP's ODBC functions to query a SQL Server 2005 database. I was doing a basic SELECT statement to get the description of something when I encountered the following error:

Warning: odbc_exec() [function.odbc-exec]: SQL error: [unixODBC][FreeTDS][SQL Server]Unicode data in a Unicode-only collation or ntext data cannot be sent to clients using DB-Library (such as ISQL) or ODBC version 3.7 or earlier., SQL state in SQLExecDirect in /home/web/file.php on line 4

It turns out that the PHP ODBC functions have a hard time pulling "nvarchar" data. Here's the ugly solution to getting nvarchar data:

SELECT CAST(CAST([DetailedDescription] AS VARCHAR(8000)) AS TEXT) AS ad FROM mytable WHERE active = 1

Not pretty but making it function is what counts.

Recent Features

  • By
    CSS 3D Folding Animation

    Google Plus provides loads of inspiration for front-end developers, especially when it comes to the CSS and JavaScript wonders they create. Last year I duplicated their incredible PhotoStack effect with both MooTools and pure CSS; this time I'm going to duplicate...

  • By
    Facebook Open Graph META Tags

    It's no secret that Facebook has become a major traffic driver for all types of websites.  Nowadays even large corporations steer consumers toward their Facebook pages instead of the corporate websites directly.  And of course there are Facebook "Like" and "Recommend" widgets on every website.  One...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Duplicate the jQuery Homepage Tooltips Using MooTools

    The jQuery homepage has a pretty suave tooltip-like effect as seen below: Here's how to accomplish this same effect using MooTools. The XHTML The above XHTML was taken directly from the jQuery homepage -- no changes. The CSS The above CSS has been slightly modified to match the CSS rules already...

  • By
    jQuery Wookmark

    The first thing that hits you when you visit Pinterest is "Whoa, the columns are the same width and the photos are cut to fit just the way they should."  Basic web users probably think nothing of it but as a developer, I can appreciate the...

Discussion

  1. THANKS!!!
    muchas gracias.. ahora puedo seguir trabajando tranquilo.. justamante estaba teniendo problemas con un campo nvarchar.

  2. umberleigh

    Casting to varchar limits you to 8000 characters in a field.

    I found just casting to text works better, like so:

    print("SELECT CAST([column_name] AS TEXT) AS column_0 FROM table_name");
  3. Thanks , nice solve problem from sql server

  4. San

    Cast did the job ….

    Nice post !!!

  5. mohi

    not work!

    Warning: mssql_query() [function.mssql-query]: message: Incorrect syntax near ‘ASâ’. (severity 15) in /var/www/vhosts/fvc.ir/httpdocs/mssql.php on line 11

  6. Thank you very very much!
    And here is how to write value:
    http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7255703/utf-8-in-sql-server-2008-database-php

    $value = 'ŽČŘĚÝÁÖ';
    $value = iconv('UTF-8', 'UTF-16LE', $value); //convert into native encoding 
    $value = bin2hex($value); //convert into hexadecimal
    $query = 'INSERT INTO some_table (some_nvarchar_field)  VALUES(CONVERT(nvarchar(MAX), 0x'.$value.'))';
    
  7. thanks a lot. i was not shure what was the problem. In the sql management studio the data looks fine and in php is not. my first impresion was user rights for the data .. but after 1 hour of hair pulling :) i wandered if culd be the odbc … and like this i found your post

    thanks again

  8. Riyas

    Thanks for this solution. I was stuck at this problem and finally reached here

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!