note ikegami Looks like a there's a call to <c>SvSETMAGIC</c> missing in DBI or DBD::ODBC. Just to confirm, does the following cause <c>length</c> to return the correct length? <c> $txt=$txt; </c> <p>By the way, using constant <c>SQL_WCHAR</c> would be clearer than using <c>-8</c>. 860211 860211