R help - Aug 2009 - RODBC does not like table names >11/12 characters

Hi List,

I used to access a Paradox database using RODBC, but since last week I 
am not able anymore to fetch any table which has a name longer than 11 
or 12 characters.

Here is the the pattern of my code, nothing spectacular:

library(RODBC)
channel2<-odbcDriverConnect('DSN=xxx')
#table names with up to 11 characters still work
sqlFetch(channel2, 'abcdefghijk')
#table names with 13 or more characters do not
sqlFetch(channel2, 'abcdefghijklm')
Fehler in odbcTableExists(channel, sqtable) :
   ?abcdefghijklm?: table not found on channel

I do not have any tables with 12 character names, to check where exactly 
the borderline is. Of course, the table ?abcdefghijklm? exist on the 
channel, even if I feed it directly t osqlFetch via

sqlFetch(channel2, sqlTables(channel2)$TABLE_NAME[x])

I think it has to do with a recent update.packages(), i.e. with an 
update of RODBC, but I do not know how to use an old RODBC version to 
test this. Any suggestions, for example how to rre-install an old package?

Thanks in advance for any help,
Stefan

Just in case sb. has the same problem, using sqlQuery instead of 
sqlFetch solved the problem for me with RODBC 1.3-0. Seems as the 
implementation of sqlFetch does something bad to long table names - just 
a guess.

Stefan

Stefan Uhmann schrieb, Am 14.08.2009 14:12:
> Hi List,
> 
> I used to access a Paradox database using RODBC, but since last week I 
> am not able anymore to fetch any table which has a name longer than 11 
> or 12 characters.
> 
> Here is the the pattern of my code, nothing spectacular:
> 
> library(RODBC)
> channel2<-odbcDriverConnect('DSN=xxx')
> #table names with up to 11 characters still work
> sqlFetch(channel2, 'abcdefghijk')
> #table names with 13 or more characters do not
> sqlFetch(channel2, 'abcdefghijklm')
> Fehler in odbcTableExists(channel, sqtable) :
>    ?abcdefghijklm?: table not found on channel
> 
> I do not have any tables with 12 character names, to check where exactly 
> the borderline is. Of course, the table ?abcdefghijklm? exist on the 
> channel, even if I feed it directly t osqlFetch via
> 
> sqlFetch(channel2, sqlTables(channel2)$TABLE_NAME[x])
> 
> I think it has to do with a recent update.packages(), i.e. with an 
> update of RODBC, but I do not know how to use an old RODBC version to 
> test this. Any suggestions, for example how to rre-install an old package?
> 
> Thanks in advance for any help,
> Stefan