In addition to assigning semantic categories to native types, you must match each semantic category with one or more Informatica platform data types. The Informatica platform uses ODBC types to determine what type of data buffers to bind to the run-time adapter for data access. In some cases, the match between a semantic type and an Informatica platform type is not exact. For example, the Informatica platform always binds a timestamp buffer if the semantic category is mapped to an Informatica platform date, time, or timestamp data type.

In many cases, a semantic category matches one of the available Informatica platform types. In cases where there is no exact match between types, select the best possible match.

In addition to defining the best mappings to convert native types to Informatica platform types, you can specify alternate mappings. An alternate mapping allows the end user to select alternate transformation data types to associate with the input and output ports of a data source used in a mapping.

Use the

Informatica Connector Toolkit

to add matching Informatica platform data types for the semantic category. You can indicate whether the mapping is the exact match or whether the mapping can result in a lossy data conversion due to a match that is not exact.