[DRILL-5884] Encode dot characters and other special characters in identifiers

• Type: Wish
• Status: Open
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Affects Version/s: 1.10.0
• Component/s: Client - JDBC, Client - ODBC, Metadata, SQL Parser, Storage - JDBC

Environment

OS: Windows 7 32-bit
Reporting tools: Crystal Reports 2008, Crystal Reports 2016

• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: second88
• Created: 17/Oct/17 07:26
• Updated: 17/Oct/17 07:26

Description

Crystal Reports 2008 & 2016 do not work for generic JDBC / ODBC drivers (including Drill) if there are dot characters in identifiers such as schema names.
For example, given that there exists a view called `dfs.tmp`.`A`, it is not listed under schema `dfs.tmp` in the report creation wizard of Crystal Reports 2008 / 2016.
It is because Crystal Reports chops schema name from "dfs.tmp" to "tmp" due the dot character and then tries to retrieve the table names under the non-existing schema "tmp" using the metadata API of JDBC / ODBC.

I suggest to add an optional parameter called "url_encodes_id" to the connection string where the default value is false.
When url_encodes_id=true, the JDBC / ODBC driver or the SQL parser on the server side provides URL-encoded metadata information such as schema names and table names and URL-decodes the identifiers before it actually execute the metadata API or SQL statements.
For example, the following methods of DatabaseMetaData takes URL-encoded IDs / patterns and return URL-encoded IDs:
getSchemas()
getSchemas(String catalog, String schemaPattern)
getTables(String catalog, String schemaPattern, String tableNamePattern, String types[])

And the following select statement, of which the schema name is URL-encoded, will be able to execute by JDBC / ODBC driver:

SELECT `A`.`ID`
FROM `dfs%2etmp`.`A` `A`