ODBC - Can use file DSN in Rev?

[Bernard Devlin]

I guess it is my understanding of fileDSN that is wrong then.  I was
thinking that it was treating a file as a database.  I thought the
representation of the DSN in ini file format was just for the sake of
transcribing the details for us to read.  I know that with ODBC on
Linux it is done as an ini file, but I didn't realise that was even
possible with Windows.

I am confused by how such a DSN would work.  The fact that it uses a
UNC reference to contact the database would lead me to expect it to
only work with a Microsoft product (Access or SQL Server), or maybe
with another db that was running on Windows.  I did have a look at the
DB2 documentation and they talk about fileDSN but I didn't find an
example of it working.

I did find this bug report from microsoft:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/323803

In the DB2 documentation I found, they show an example of a DSN less
connection using ip address rather than UNC:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/db2luw/v9/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.db2.udb.apdv.cli.doc/doc/t0024166.htm

Have you tried the fileDSN using e.g. Excel to connect to DB2?  Maybe
the problem lies at a lower level than Rev.  If you could get it
working with Excel, but you couldn't get it working with Rev, then it
would point conclusively to a Rev bug.

Bernard

On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 7:13 PM, Scott Pepperdine <spepper at byu.net> wrote:
> Bernard,  Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what a fileDSN is, but I don't
> believe so.  A DSN is a collection of connection parms used to connect to an
> ODBC compliant data source.  A System DSN and User DSN store that
> information in the Windows Registry.  A file DSN stores that information in
> a file, *.dsn.  That should be the only difference between System/User DSNs
> and a File DSN.  But I have not been able to make this work with Revolution.
>
> I have to disagree with your assessment of the forum posting I referenced in
> my original post.  He is trying to access an ODBC compliant database.  The
> fact that it is MS Access in that case is irrelevant.  He was trying to
> connect to it using "revOpenDatabase", not as a "local file".  In his
> subsequent thread he is using a system DSN to connect to MS Access.  Again,
> since he is using a system DSN, he is connecting using ODBC to a database
> server.  The fact that he is using a UNC path must be how you specify the
> path to Access (I'm ignorant of MS Access, and hope to stay that way).  But
> he was originally trying to connect to an ODBC database using a fileDSN in
> Revolution and had to give it up.  I may have to do the same.
>
> I do not see why putting the connection parms in a file instead of in the
> registry should be a distinctly unusual way to use ODBC.  It is simply a
> method to make the app self-contained and easier to distribute.
>
> Thanks for the response,
> --Scott
>