cursor.execute("SELECT 1 FROM systables WHERE tabid = 1")
cursor.fetchone() == (1,)
To my knowledge, this is the first time a pure-Python implementation
has read data from Informix without wrapping IBM's CSDK or JDBC.
Three breakthroughs in this commit:
1. Login PDU's database field is BROKEN. Passing a database name there
makes the server reject subsequent SQ_DBOPEN with sqlcode -759
("database not available"). JDBC always sends NULL in the login
PDU's database slot — we now do the same. The user-supplied database
opens via SQ_DBOPEN in _init_session.
2. Post-login session init dance: SQ_PROTOCOLS (8-byte feature mask
replayed verbatim from JDBC) → SQ_INFO with INFO_ENV + env vars
(48-byte PDU replayed verbatim — DBTEMP=/tmp, SUBQCACHESZ=10) →
SQ_DBOPEN. Without all three steps in this exact order, the server
silently ignores SELECTs.
3. SQ_DESCRIBE per-column block has 10 fields per column (not the
simple "name + type" my best-effort parser assumed): fieldIndex,
columnStartPos, columnType, columnExtendedId, ownerName,
extendedName, reference, alignment, sourceType, encodedLength.
The string table at the end is offset-indexed (fieldIndex points
into it), which is how JDBC handles disambiguation.
Cursor lifecycle implementation in cursors.py mirrors JDBC exactly:
PREPARE+NDESCRIBE+WANTDONE → DESCRIBE+DONE+COST+EOT
CURNAME+NFETCH(4096) → TUPLE*+DONE+COST+EOT
NFETCH(4096) → DONE+COST+EOT (drain)
CLOSE → EOT
RELEASE → EOT
Five round trips per SELECT — same as JDBC.
Module changes:
src/informix_db/connections.py — added _init_session(), _send_protocols(),
_send_dbopen(), _drain_to_eot(), _raise_sq_err(); login PDU now
forces database=None always; SQ_INFO PDU replayed verbatim from
JDBC capture (offsets-indexed env-var format too gnarly to derive
in MVP).
src/informix_db/cursors.py — full rewrite: real PDU builders for
PREPARE/CURNAME+NFETCH/NFETCH/CLOSE/RELEASE; tag-dispatched
response readers; cursor-name generator matching JDBC's "_ifxc"
convention.
src/informix_db/_resultset.py — proper SQ_DESCRIBE parser per
JDBC's receiveDescribe (USVER mode); offset-indexed string table
with name lookup by fieldIndex; ColumnInfo dataclass with raw
type-code preserved for null-flag extraction.
src/informix_db/_messages.py — added SQ_NDESCRIBE=22, SQ_WANTDONE=49.
Test coverage: 40 unit + 15 integration tests (7 smoke + 8 new SELECT)
= 55 total, all green, ruff clean. New tests cover:
- SELECT 1 returns (1,)
- cursor.description shape per PEP 249
- Multi-row INT SELECT
- Multi-column mixed types (INT + FLOAT)
- Iterator protocol (for row in cursor)
- fetchmany(n)
- Re-executing on same cursor resets state
- Two cursors on one connection (sequential)
Known gap: VARCHAR row decoding doesn't yet handle the variable-width
on-wire encoding correctly. Phase 2.x will address — for now NotImpl
errors surface raw bytes in the row tuple.
Polish item #1: byte-for-byte regression test that asserts our
generated login PDU is structurally identical to JDBC's reference
captured in docs/CAPTURES/01-connect-only.socat.log.
The test (tests/test_pdu_match.py) immediately caught a real bug:
the capability section was misread during Phase 0 byte-decoding.
Earlier text claimed Cap_1=1, Cap_2=0x3c000000, Cap_3=0 — actually:
Cap_1 = 0x0000013c (= (capability_class << 8) | protocol_version
where protocol_version = 0x3c = PF_PROT_SQLI_0600)
Cap_2 = 0
Cap_3 = 0
The misalignment was: the 0x3c byte I attributed to Cap_2's high
byte was actually Cap_1's low byte. The dev-image server is
permissive enough to accept arbitrary capability values, so the
connection succeeded even with the wrong bytes — but the PDU wasn't
structurally identical to JDBC's reference. SERVER-ACCEPTS ≠
STRUCTURALLY-CORRECT. This is exactly why the byte-for-byte diff
was the right polish item; "it connects" was a false ceiling.
After fix:
- 6 PDU-match tests assert byte-for-byte equality at offsets 2..280
(the structural prefix: SLheader sans length, all login markers,
capability ints, username, password, protocol IDs, env vars).
- Bytes 280+ legitimately differ per process (PID, TID, hostname,
cwd, AppName) — those are NOT asserted.
- Length field (offsets 0..1) also legitimately differs because our
PDU has shorter env list and AppName.
- Test uses monkey-patched IfxSocket so no network is needed.
Polish item #2: Makefile per global CLAUDE.md convention. Targets:
install, lint, format, test, test-integration, test-all, test-pdu,
ifx-up/down/logs/shell/status, capture (re-run JDBC scenarios under
socat), clean. `make` (no target) prints help.
Doc updates:
- PROTOCOL_NOTES.md §12: corrected capability section with the
actual values and an explanation of the methodology lesson
- DECISION_LOG.md: new entry recording the correction with a
pointer to the regression test and the takeaway
Side artifacts:
- docs/CAPTURES/03-py-connect-only.socat.log
- docs/CAPTURES/04-py-no-database.socat.log
- docs/CAPTURES/05-py-fixed-caps.socat.log
Test counts: 40 unit + 6 integration = 46 total, all green, ruff clean.
