22.1.1. Connector/ODBC Versions

These are the versions of Connector/ODBC that are currently available:

Connector/ODBC 5.2, currently in GA status, upgrades the ANSI driver of Connector/ODBC 3.51 to the 5.x code base. It also includes new features, such as enabling server-side prepared statements by default. At installation time, you can choose the Unicode driver for the broadest compatibility with data sources using various character sets, or the ANSI driver for optimal performance with a more limited range of character sets. It works with MySQL versions 4.1.1 and higher.
Connector/ODBC 5.1, now superseded by 5.2, is a partial rewrite of the of the 3.51 code base, and is designed to work with MySQL versions 4.1.1 and newer.

Connector/ODBC 5.1 also includes the following changes and improvements over the 3.51 release:
- Improved support on Windows 64-bit platforms.
- Full Unicode support at the driver level. This includes support for the SQL_WCHAR data type, and support for Unicode login, password and DSN configurations. For more information, see Microsoft Knowledgebase Article #716246.
- Support for the SQL_NUMERIC_STRUCT data type, which provides easier access to the precise definition of numeric values. For more information, see Microsoft Knowledgebase Article #714556
- Native Windows setup library. This replaces the Qt library based interface for configuring DSN information within the ODBC Data Sources application.
- Support for the ODBC descriptor, which improves the handling and metadata of columns and parameter data. For more information, see Microsoft Knowledgebase Article #716339.
Connector/ODBC 3.51 is the current release of the 32-bit ODBC driver, also known as the MySQL ODBC 3.51 driver. Connector/ODBC 3.51 has support for ODBC 3.5x specification level 1 (complete core API + level 2 features) to continue to provide all functionality of ODBC for accessing MySQL.

With MySQL Connector/ODBC 5.2 now offering both ANSI and Unicode drivers, you should expect to upgrade relatively soon.

The manual for versions of Connector/ODBC older than 5.2 can be located in the corresponding binary or source distribution. Please note that versions of Connector/ODBC earlier than the 3.51 revision were not fully compliant with the ODBC specification.

Note

From this section onward, the primary focus of this guide is the Connector/ODBC 5.2 driver.

Note

Version numbers for MySQL products are formatted as X.X.X. However, Windows tools (Control Panel, properties display) may show the version numbers as XX.XX.XX. For example, the official MySQL formatted version number 5.0.9 may be displayed by Windows tools as 5.00.09. The two versions are the same; only the number display format is different.