Forum Discussion

oneeyeman1's avatar
oneeyeman1
Copper Contributor
Apr 19, 2026

Is there a way to check for ODBC driver UNICODE support

Hi, ALL,

I'm writing a C++ code to talk to a different DBMSes and wonder if there is a way to check programmatically for the UNICODE support.

 

I know its a year 2026 and 99.9999% of the programs are using UNICODE, but many drivers are still being shipped as ANSI counterparts as well.

 

Thank you for any pointers.

 

1 Reply

  • mohdadeeb's avatar
    mohdadeeb
    Brass Contributor
    Apr 20, 2026

    "Yeah, you can check if an ODBC driver supports Unicode by looking at its documentation or properties first. Another way is to test it using a small query with Unicode data and see how it behaves. Some drivers also show Unicode support in the ODBC Data Source Administrator settings. In my case, I usually confirm it by checking driver specs or running a quick test with wide-character data, that gives a clear idea pretty quickly."