The Unicode driver, not the Driver Manager, must convert SQL_C_CHAR (ANSI) data to SQL_WCHAR (Unicode) data, and vice versa, as well as SQL_C_WCHAR (Unicode) data to SQL_CHAR (ANSI) data, and vice versa.

The driver must use client code page information (Active Code Page on Windows and IANAAppCodePage attribute on UNIX/Linux) to determine which ANSI code page to use for the conversions. The Active Code Page or IANAAppCodePage must match the database default character encoding; if it does not, conversion errors are possible.