The application should try to bind columns to a program variable of the same data type as the column in the result set. If the application still needs to have the data converted, it is more efficient for the application to ask the ODBC driver to do the data conversion than for the application to do it. Normally, the driver simply transfers data directly from the network buffer to the application’s variables. However, requesting the ODBC driver to perform data translation forces the driver to buffer the data and use CPU cycles to perform the conversion. You should avoid this wherever possible.