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Status Delivered
Workspace IBM i
Created by Guest
Created on Nov 26, 2019

Native ODBC parameter for trimming whitespace

When querying tables that contain fixed-length CHAR columns, the values that are returned retain their whitespace. Thus, a value like 'Acme Industries, Inc.' might take the form of 'Acme Industries, Inc. ' if the column is defined as 30 characters.

The two workarounds I'm aware of are to 1) create a view with the trim() scalar function applied to each column and 2) trim the values within your code after having fetched the query results. Both workarounds negatively affect performance.

i5_char_trim was added to PHP's ibm_db2 extension as noted here http://www.youngiprofessionals.com/wiki/index.php/XMLService/PHPDB2ChangeLog. However, since IBM's PHP RPM will be using odbc instead, we will have a need for the same functionality.


Use Case:

This applies any time users retrieve values from a database table that contains a fixed-length character column.


Idea priority Low
  • Guest
    Reply
    |
    May 21, 2021

    In the latest ODBC version, the TrimCharFields connection option has been added which supports trimming fixed-length CHAR and GRAPHIC fields.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |
    Mar 12, 2020

    We are investigating the feasibility of this.