Databases and Connections

DB Access Module for ODBC User's Guide
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2.2 Databases and Connections

This section describes the arguments used to build a connect string to an ODBC database. In order for a SourcePro DB application to interact with a database, an RWDBDatabase instance must be created by calling:

RWDBManager::database(accessLib, serverName, userName, 
                      passWord, "");

All arguments are of type RWCString. These parameters are used to build a connect string which is passed to the ODBC API function SQLDriverConnect(). The string is of the form:

DSN=serverName; UID=userName; PWD=passWord;

The arguments you must provide to RWDBManager::database() are:

accessLib: If your DB Access Module for ODBC is compiled as a DLL or shared library, provide the name of the DLL or shared library. See the document Building Your Applications for information about naming conventions. If you are using a static library, supply the string "ODBC".

serverName: Supply the name of the ODBC data source to which you are connecting, as found in the ODBC Data Source Administrator. Or, for direct control of connection parameters, pass a full connect string of the form required by SQLDriverConnect(); for example:

"DSN=someDataSource;UID=user;PWD=password"

In this case, the string is passed to SQLDriverConnect() without modification, and the userName, passWord, and databaseName parameters are ignored.

userName: Supply a login of a valid user. Depending on the underlying driver, this may or may not be optional.

passWord: Supply the password for the user specified by userName. Depending on the underlying driver, this may or may not be optional.

databaseName: Note: This parameter is deprecated. If a value is supplied, it is used to form a portion of the connect string by appending ";DB=databaseName" to the connect string. The interpretation of this argument is driver dependent as it is not a connection keyword in the ODBC API.

Here are several examples of opening a database.

The first example uses a driver to access dBase tables. A user name and password are not necessary. Notice that accessLib is defined as "odb8012d.dll", indicating that the application will dynamically load (DLL) the Access Module at runtime:

RWDBDatabase aDB = RWDBManager::database ("odb8012d.dll",
                                       "dbase_driver", "","", "");

The second example uses a driver to access Paradox tables. Again, a user name and password are unnecessary, and omitted. Notice that accessLib is defined as "ODBC", indicating that the application must be linked with the static version of the Access Module:

RWDBDatabase aDB = RWDBManager::database ("ODBC",
                                       "paradox files", "","", "");

The third example uses a driver to access a Microsoft database server named "Microsoft SQL Server". A user name and password are provided. Notice that accessLib is defined as "odb8012d.dll", indicating that the application will dynamically load (DLL) the Access Module at runtime:

RWDBDatabase aDB = RWDBManager::database ("odb8012d.dll",
                   "Microsoft SQL Server",
                   "cratchitt","scrooge", "");

The final example uses a driver on a Unix machine to access a Sybase ASE server with a Data Source Name of "Sybase". Notice that accessLib is defined as "libodb8012d.so", indicating that the application will use the Access Module as a UNIX shared library at runtime:

RWDBDatabase aDB = RWDBManager::database ("libodb8012d.so", 
                         "Sybase",
                         "cratchitt","scrooge", "");

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