PHP and odbc to mssql - column names not showing up correctly

Question

Having a problem trying to return field names from an MSSQL database via odbc in php. My query is as follows:

SELECT t.ID, t.end_user, ts.name 'status', tp.name 'priority' FROM tickets t INNER JOIN status ts ON ts.ID = t.status INNER JOIN priorities tp ON tp.ID = t.priority

Problem is, when I run this on the MSSQL server, the column names come up as expected (ID, end_user, status, priority), but when I run it on my page, I get "name" for both the status and priority columns.

Is there any rhyme or reason why it's not seeing my renaming of the columns? I tried using "AS" in the query, no luck.

Box is ubuntu running FreeTDS odbc driver version 7.2

Answer 1

I just spoke to J_D on the phone, (total internet stalk!), he suggested adding

+''

to a column name. That seems to circumvent this bug. The above code would have to be changed to

SELECT t.ID, t.end_user, ts.name+'' 'status', tp.name+'' 'priority' FROM tickets t INNER JOIN status ts ON ts.ID = t.status INNER JOIN priorities tp ON tp.ID = t.priority

which is a bit of a hack, but it will work. Apparently this is the result of some sort of bug in PHP when it tries to decipher ODBC results.

If anyone has a suggestion that does not involve altering SQL code, I personally would much appreciate it, saves me altering pages and pages of SQL code.

In other news, J_D, thank you for being such a gentleman on the phone to a random stranger.