In addition to the datatype support listed in Datatypes , Sybase Open Client Client-Library datatypes are also supported, with the following restrictions.

Since large text and image datatypes can’t be directly bound, the DB Access Module for Sybase always maps text and image bound input datatypes to the Client-Library types CS_CHAR_TYPE and CS_BINARY_TYPE, respectively. This type mapping allows binding for text and image data up to the length limit of 16384 bytes. Text and image types over the length limit should not be bound directly; they can be sent only as literal strings within the SQL statement.

In addition to restricting direct binding of text and image datatypes, the Client-Library function ct_setparam() refrains from implicit type conversions. Hence, it is the responsibility of applications to bind compatible types for target database table columns.

For bulk inserts, applications can directly bind text and image datatypes of any size, since the Sybase Bulk-Library has no type limitation in bulk binding routines. Furthermore, the bulk routine call blk_bind() performs implicit type conversions, and hence it may be possible to bind convertible types when doing bulk inserts. Please see the Sybase documentation for details on datatype conversion support.