Accessing Data on Case-Sensitive Data Sources

Your application must be designed to support operations, such as searching, on external, case-sensitive data sources. Some desktop database products and database servers are case-sensitive by default. These include FoxPro, dBASE, and Paradox. In addition, some database servers accessible through ODBC can be configured as case-sensitive.

If you need to search on a case-sensitive data source, you can design your queries using OR clauses to capture all possible combinations (all uppercase, all lowercase, or proper case). There are, however, three cases where products that are typically case-sensitive are never case-sensitive:

• If you’re connecting to an Xbase database, such as FoxPro or dBASE, check the CollatingSequence setting in the \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE
  \Microsoft\Jet\3.5\Engines\Xbase key of the registry. If this setting is set to ASCII, all operations are case-sensitive; if it is set to International, all operations are not case-sensitive.
  
  
• If you’re connecting to a Paradox database, check the CollatingSequence setting in the \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Jet\3.5\Engines\Paradox key of the registry. If this setting is set to ASCII, all operations are case-sensitive; if it is set to International, Norwegian-Danish, or Swedish-Finnish, all operations are not case-sensitive.
  
  
• If you’re connecting to a database server through ODBC, case-sensitivity will be determined by the server’s configuration. Check with your database server administrator to determine if your server is configured as case-sensitive or not case-sensitive.

Note If a case-sensitive query is performed across multiple data sources, the collating sequence in effect on the database that hosts the query will determine the query’s case-sensitivity.