Transact-SQL-compatible databases

You can eliminate some differences in behavior between SQL Anywhere and Adaptive Server Enterprise by selecting appropriate options when creating a database or, if you are working on an existing database, when rebuilding the database. You can control other differences by setting connection level options using the SET TEMPORARY OPTION statement in SQL Anywhere or the SET statement in Adaptive Server Enterprise.

Make the database case sensitive

By default, string comparisons in Adaptive Server Enterprise databases are case sensitive, while those in SQL Anywhere are case insensitive.

When building an Adaptive Server Enterprise-compatible database using SQL Anywhere, choose the case sensitive option.

If you are using Sybase Central, this option is in the Create Database Wizard.
If you are using the dbinit utility, specify the -c option.
If you are using the CREATE DATABASE statement, specify the CASE RESPECT clause.

Ignore trailing blanks in comparisons

When building an Adaptive Server Enterprise-compatible database using SQL Anywhere, choose the option to ignore trailing blanks in comparisons.

If you are using Sybase Central, this option is in the Create Database Wizard.
If you are using the dbinit utility, specify the -b option.
If you are using the CREATE DATABASE statement, specify the BLANK PADDING ON clause.

When you choose this option, Adaptive Server Enterprise and SQL Anywhere considers the following two strings equal:

'ignore the trailing blanks   '
'ignore the trailing blanks'

If you do not choose this option, SQL Anywhere considers the two strings above different.

A side effect of choosing this option is that strings are padded with blanks when fetched by a client application.

Remove historical system views

Older versions of SQL Anywhere employed two system views whose names conflict with the Adaptive Server Enterprise system views provided for compatibility. These views are SYSCOLUMNS and SYSINDEXES. If you are using Open Client or JDBC interfaces, create your database excluding these views. You can do this with the dbinit -k option.

If you do not use this option when creating your database, executing the statement SELECT * FROM SYSCOLUMNS; results in the error SQLE_AMBIGUOUS_TABLE_NAME.