I'm experimenting with haskell and relational databases. I have successfully coupled unixodbc + freetds + hdbc-odbc, and can make trivial queries. However, I'm surprised at the result types: $ ghci GHCi, version 6.10.3: http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ :? for help Loading package ghc-prim ... linking ... done. Loading package integer ... linking ... done. Loading package base ... linking ... done. Prelude> c <- Database.HDBC.ODBC.connectODBC "DSN=xxxxx;UID=xxxxx;PWD=xxxx" Loading package syb ... linking ... done. Loading package base-3.0.3.1 ... linking ... done. Loading package array-0.2.0.0 ... linking ... done. Loading package containers-0.2.0.1 ... linking ... done. Loading package bytestring-0.9.1.4 ... linking ... done. Loading package old-locale-1.0.0.1 ... linking ... done. Loading package old-time-1.0.0.2 ... linking ... done. Loading package mtl-1.1.0.2 ... linking ... done. Loading package utf8-string-0.3.5 ... linking ... done. Loading package time-1.1.4 ... linking ... done. Loading package convertible-1.0.9 ... linking ... done. Loading package HDBC-2.2.4 ... linking ... done. Loading package HDBC-odbc-2.2.3.0 ... linking ... done. Prelude> Database.HDBC.quickQuery c "select 1+3" [] [[SqlByteString "4"]] Prelude> Why do I see an SqlByteString returned, rather than a numeric type? Taking a closer look at the HDBC-ODBC implementation it would appear that data will always be returned as SqlByteString, or as SqlNull. Is this the intended behaviour, or just a sign of an incomplete implementation of the ODBC driver? It would certainly seem possible for the ODBC driver to return more specific types. Tim