Tabularis Informix Plugin

A Tabularis database driver plugin for IBM Informix 11.70 and newer, implemented in Rust. It speaks Tabularis' JSON-RPC-over-stdio protocol and connects to Informix through the IBM Informix ODBC driver.

Requirements

• IBM Informix Client SDK (CSDK) installed on the machine running Tabularis. It provides the ODBC driver (IBM INFORMIX ODBC DRIVER, iclit09b.dll) and the network libraries. Without it the plugin loads but every connection fails with ODBC error IM002 (data source / driver not found).
• On Linux: additionally install the unixODBC driver manager (unixodbc / unixodbc-dev on Debian/Ubuntu) and register the Informix ODBC driver for Linux in odbcinst.ini. The driver manager is what loads the Informix driver at runtime.
• A Rust toolchain (stable; MSVC on Windows) to build from source.

⚠️ Bitness must match the Informix ODBC driver

An ODBC application can only load a driver of its own bitness. The Informix ODBC driver shipped in C:\Program Files (x86)\IBM Informix Client SDK is 32-bit, so the plugin must be built 32-bit too. Tabularis (64-bit) talks to the plugin over stdio, so the plugin's bitness is independent of the host.

A 64-bit build against a 32-bit driver fails with IM002 even though the driver is installed. The official releases ship both win-x86 (32-bit) and win-x64 (64-bit); pick the one matching your driver. (Linux releases ship linux-x64.)

To check your driver's bitness: it is registered under HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\ODBC\ODBCINST.INI (32-bit) vs HKLM\SOFTWARE\ODBC\ODBCINST.INI (64-bit).

Building

cargo test                                          # unit tests (no database needed)

# Build matching your Informix ODBC driver's bitness:
rustup target add i686-pc-windows-msvc              # once, for 32-bit driver
cargo build --release --target i686-pc-windows-msvc # 32-bit (typical Informix CSDK)
# …or for a 64-bit Informix ODBC driver:
cargo build --release --target x86_64-pc-windows-msvc

The binary lands in target/<target>/release/tabularis-informix-plugin(.exe).

Tip: to avoid passing --target every time, create a local .cargo/config.toml with [build]\ntarget = "i686-pc-windows-msvc" (this file is git-ignored so it stays a per-machine choice).

The unit tests cover the pure logic: identifier quoting, coltype/collength decoding, SQL-literal formatting, SKIP/FIRST pagination, connection-string assembly, and DDL generation.

Installing

Copy the manifest and the compiled binary into a folder named informix (matching the manifest id) inside the Tabularis plugins directory:

• Windows: %APPDATA%\debba\tabularis\data\plugins\informix\
• Linux: ~/.local/share/tabularis/plugins/informix/
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/tabularis/plugins/informix/

informix/
├── manifest.json
└── tabularis-informix-plugin(.exe)

Restart Tabularis (or install via Settings → Installed Plugins). "IBM Informix" then appears in the Database Type list.

Connecting

Fill the connection form as usual (host, port, user, password). Two Informix-specific points:

1. Informix server (dbservername). Informix needs the INFORMIXSERVER (dbservername) in addition to the host/port — it is the logical instance name, distinct from the machine address. Provide it either:

   • per connection (recommended), by typing the Host as address@dbservername (e.g. 192.0.2.10@ol_informix1210). This is the only per-connection option in multi-database mode, where the database field is hidden.
   • per connection via the database, as dbname@dbservername, when a single database field is shown, or
   • globally, via the Default Informix Server plugin setting (only useful when every connection targets the same dbservername).

   Because this driver is multi-database (you browse all databases on the instance from one connection), use the Host = address@dbservername form so each connection can point at a different server.

2. ODBC driver / DSN. By default the plugin builds a DSN-less connection string using the ODBC Driver Name setting (IBM INFORMIX ODBC DRIVER). If you prefer a pre-configured ODBC DSN, set the ODBC DSN setting and the host/server/protocol fields are taken from the DSN instead.

DELIMIDENT=Y is always set so double-quoted identifiers work and single quotes delimit string literals.

Plugin settings

Setting	Purpose
ODBC Driver Name	Registered Informix ODBC driver name (DSN-less mode).
Default Informix Server	INFORMIXSERVER used when the database field has no @server.
Network Protocol	onsoctcp (default), onsocssl, onipcshm, olsoctcp.
ODBC DSN	Optional pre-configured DSN; bypasses DSN-less assembly.
DB_LOCALE / CLIENT_LOCALE	Optional locales (e.g. en_US.819).
Extra Connection Attributes	Verbatim key=value; ODBC attributes.

Feature coverage

Area	Status
Connect / ping / test_connection	✅
Tables, columns, indexes, foreign keys	✅
Views (list, definition, columns)	✅
Routines (list, definition)	✅
Query execution with SKIP/FIRST pagination + total count	✅
Insert / update / delete rows	✅
Create table / add column / alter column	✅
Create / drop index, create / drop foreign key	✅
ER-diagram batch metadata (get_schema_snapshot, batches)	✅

Known limitations

• Schemas / owners are not exposed as a separate namespace. Tables are listed and referenced unqualified within the connected database; two objects with the same name under different owners are not disambiguated.
• Column defaults are best-effort. Keyword defaults (TODAY, CURRENT, USER, DBSERVERNAME) are mapped exactly; literal defaults are read from sysdefaults with the internal numeric class prefix stripped.
• Routine parameters are not introspected (Informix lacks a reliable catalog for named parameters); get_routine_parameters returns an empty list.
• DECIMAL / MONEY values are returned as strings to preserve precision; integer and floating-point columns are returned as JSON numbers.
• SSL is not wired up yet (supports_ssl is off). You can still select the onsocssl protocol and supply keystore attributes via Extra Connection Attributes if your environment is configured for it.
• ON UPDATE foreign-key actions are ignored (Informix does not support them); ON DELETE CASCADE is supported.

Manual JSON-RPC smoke test

echo '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"get_create_table_sql","params":{"table_name":"t","columns":[{"name":"id","data_type":"INTEGER","is_nullable":false,"is_pk":true,"is_auto_increment":true}],"schema":null},"id":1}' \
  | ./target/release/tabularis-informix-plugin

License

Apache-2.0.