I added the above function to mys version of php
a while ago and have found it very usefull.

The rationale for this is that when an error occurs you
want to send back some meaningfull error message in the 
page contents in a formatted manner.
ie <P class=error> Sorry but uodbc_lasterror() occured.
(ie insert record failed).

Thus I created a function odbc_lasterror() that returns the
last error from SQLError.

In my version I strip off everything prior to the actual
error message , as the state info etc is of no value to an
end user.

MTCW.