Compilation failure for odbc on Windows 11 ARM64 (aarch64) due to MultiByteToWideChar type mismatch in nanodbc.cpp

[denis-or]

The installation of the odbc package consistently fails when attempting to compile the C++ source code, both for the stable CRAN version and the development version from GitHub.

The error occurs during the compilation of the nanodbc/nanodbc.cpp file, specifically at the call to the Windows API function MultiByteToWideChar. The compiler (aarch64-w64-mingw32.static.posix-clang++) reports a type mismatch between the type nanodbc is providing (char16_t *) and the type expected by the system header (LPWSTR, which is defined as wchar_t *).

This suggests an issue with the definition or handling of wide character types (UTF-8/Wide Char) within the specific context of the ARM64 compilation toolchain.

Operating System Windows 11 Home
CPU Architecture ARM64 / Snapdragon (Asus Vivobook S5)
R Version R 4.5.2 aarch64 (Native ARM64 installation)
Compilation Toolchain Rtools45-aarch64 (or the installed aarch64 version)
R Package Attempted odbc (both CRAN version and r-dbi/odbc)
Installation Method install.packages("odbc") and/or pak::pak("r-dbi/odbc")

`> pak::pak("r-dbi/odbc")
✔ Loading metadata database ... done

→ Will install 1 package.
→ Will download 1 package with unknown size.

• odbc 1.6.3.9000 [bld][cmp][dl] (GitHub: c8a2e26)
  ℹ Getting 1 pkg with unknown size
  ✔ Got odbc 1.6.3.9000 (source) (982.68 kB)
  ✔ Downloaded 1 package (982.68 kB) in 901ms
  ℹ Packaging odbc 1.6.3.9000
  ✔ Packaged odbc 1.6.3.9000 (3.1s)
  ℹ Building odbc 1.6.3.9000
  ✖ Failed to build odbc 1.6.3.9000 (22s)
  Error:
  ! error in pak subprocess
  Caused by error in stop_task_build(state, worker):
  ! Failed to build source package odbc.
  Full installation output:

• installing source package 'odbc' ...
  ** this is package 'odbc' version '1.6.3.9000'
  staged installation is only possible with locking
  ** using non-staged installation
  ** libs
  aarch64-w64-mingw32.static.posix-clang++ -std=gnu++17 -O2 -Wall -Wall -pedantic -fdiagnostics-color=always -Wall -Iinclude -std=c++11 -pthread -O -fPIC -MMD -c -o time_zone_if.o src/time_zone_if.cc
  aarch64-w64-mingw32.static.posix-clang++ -std=gnu++17 -O2 -Wall -Wall -pedantic -fdiagnostics-color=always -Wall -Iinclude -std=c++11 -pthread -O -fPIC -MMD -c -o time_zone_impl.o src/time_zone_impl.cc
  aarch64-w64-mingw32.static.posix-clang++ -std=gnu++17 -O2 -Wall -Wall -pedantic -fdiagnostics-color=always -Wall -Iinclude -std=c++11 -pthread -O -fPIC -MMD -c -o time_zone_info.o src/time_zone_info.cc
  aarch64-w64-mingw32.static.posix-clang++ -std=gnu++17 -O2 -Wall -Wall -pedantic -fdiagnostics-color=always -Wall -Iinclude -std=c++11 -pthread -O -fPIC -MMD -c -o time_zone_libc.o src/time_zone_libc.cc
  aarch64-w64-mingw32.static.posix-clang++ -std=gnu++17 -O2 -Wall -Wall -pedantic -fdiagnostics-color=always -Wall -Iinclude -std=c++11 -pthread -O -fPIC -MMD -c -o time_zone_lookup.o src/time_zone_lookup.cc
  aarch64-w64-mingw32.static.posix-clang++ -std=gnu++17 -O2 -Wall -Wall -pedantic -fdiagnostics-color=always -Wall -Iinclude -std=c++11 -pthread -O -fPIC -MMD -c -o time_zone_posix.o src/time_zone_posix.cc
  aarch64-w64-mingw32.static.posix-ar -rv libcctz.a time_zone_fixed.o time_zone_format.o time_zone_if.o time_zone_impl.o time_zone_info.o time_zone_libc.o time_zone_lookup.o time_zone_posix.o
  C:/rtools45-aarch64/aarch64-w64-mingw32.static.posix/bin/llvm-ar.exe: warning: creating libcctz.a
  make[1]: Leaving directory '/c/Users/catop/AppData/Local/Temp/RtmpS2ZCUj/R.INSTALL76c81661fb/odbc/src/cctz'
  aarch64-w64-mingw32.static.posix-clang++ -std=gnu++17 -I"C:/PROGRA1/R-AARC1/R-451.1/include" -DNDEBUG -I'C:/Users/catop/AppData/Local/R/aarch64-library/4.5/Rcpp/include' -I"C:/rtools45-aarch64/aarch64-w64-mingw32.static.posix/include" -I. -Icctz/include -Inanodbc -O2 -Wall -Wall -pedantic -fdiagnostics-color=always -c odbc_result.cpp -o odbc_result.o
  aarch64-w64-mingw32.static.posix-clang++ -std=gnu++17 -I"C:/PROGRA1/R-AARC1/R-451.1/include" -DNDEBUG -I'C:/Users/catop/AppData/Local/R/aarch64-library/4.5/Rcpp/include' -I"C:/rtools45-aarch64/aarch64-w64-mingw32.static.posix/include" -I. -Icctz/include -Inanodbc -O2 -Wall -Wall -pedantic -fdiagnostics-color=always -c connection.cpp -o connection.o
  aarch64-w64-mingw32.static.posix-clang++ -std=gnu++17 -I"C:/PROGRA1/R-AARC1/R-45~1.1/include" -DNDEBUG -I'C:/Users/catop/AppData/Local/R/aarch64-library/4.5/Rcpp/include' -I"C:/rtools45-aarch64/aarch64-w64-mingw32.static.posix/include" -I. -Icctz/include -Inanodbc -O2 -Wall -Wall -pedantic -fdiagnostics-color=always -DNANODBC_OVERALLOCATE_CHAR -c nanodbc/nanodbc.cpp -o nanodbc.o
  nanodbc/nanodbc.cpp:371:5: error: no matching function for call to 'MultiByteToWideChar'
  371 | MultiByteToWideChar(CP_UTF8, 0, &in[0], static_cast(in.size()), &out[0], size_needed);
  | ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  C:/rtools45-aarch64/aarch64-w64-mingw32.static.posix/include/stringapiset.h:41:25: note: candidate function not viable: no known conversion from 'value_type *' (aka 'char16_t *') to 'LPWSTR' (aka 'wchar_t *') for 5th argument
  41 | WINBASEAPI int WINAPI MultiByteToWideChar (UINT CodePage, DWORD dwFlags, LPCCH lpMultiByteStr, int cbMultiByte, LPWSTR lpWideCharStr, int cchWideChar);
  | ^ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  1 error generated.
  make: *** [Makevars.win:17: nanodbc.o] Error 1
  ERROR: compilation failed for package 'odbc'
• removing 'C:/Users/catop/AppData/Local/Temp/Rtmpcr9MP0/pkg-lib2a346bef31f/odbc'`

Any suggests?

[detule]

Hey - thanks for the report.

Unfortunately I don't have an arm64 machine to help debug. Can you try with a gcc, rather than clang mingw toolchain? I am not sure how the NANODBC_USE_NATIVE_CONVERT flag is getting set, but with a modern compiler we should be using the conversion function from the standard library.

[denis-or]

Hi @detule. Tks for the reply.

I'm not sure I understand anything about toolchains. Maybe it's something difficult for me.

But I'll try to look it up.