Re: [Iodbc-macosx] Auto-scanning and simpler process for end-users

[Jonathan M. <io...@ac...>]

On Nov 12, 2004, at 5:58 PM, Theodore H.Smith wrote:

> Will iODBC ever auto-scan a particular folder for libraries?
>
> To me, that seems the most sensible thing to do. That way, we wouldn't 
> even need the iODBC admin folder. Many other MacOS technologies work 
> this way, just by putting a file in a certain folder it is used by the 
> system. Its a much nicer way.

iODBC on Mac Classic works that way.  For some reason that 
functionality was dropped for the port to Mac OS X.

> Also, I'm a bit new to this data source name thing, I don't quite get 
> it yet. Must I register every database with a DSN in the admin?
>
> Can ODCB just use the regular access name? That would be much easier. 
> EG something like this:
>
> DataBaseConnection = SomeODBCConnectFunction( "127.0.0.1 username 
> password databasename" );
>
> That way, I wouldn't need to set up any DSN in the iODCB admin.

Its certainly possible to create DSN-less connections.  Using C and our 
driver for open source databases to connect to PostgreSQL, it would 
look something like this:

char finalDSN[512];
int dsnLen;
char dsn[] = "Driver= 
/Library/ODBC/atopnsrc.bundle/Contents/MacOS/atopnsrc;"
                    "Database=my_database;"
                    "Server=localhost;"
                    "Type=PostgreSQL;"
                    "UID=my_user_id;PWD=my_password";

retcode = SQLDriverConnect(con, NULL, dsn, SQL_NTS, finalDSN, dsnLen, 
SQL_DRIVER_NOPROMPT);

The same thing can be done in REALbasic by setting the DataSource 
property of the ODBCDatabase class to the above string.

> I'm just thinking of the end-user. They'd like everything to be as 
> simple as possible, so it is preferable to avoid asking the end-user 
> to fiddle around with the iODCB admin.

With DSN-less connections, end users don't have to worry about the 
Administrator at all.

Best regards,

Jonathan Monroe
Actual Technologies - ODBC for OS X
http://www.actualtechnologies.com
mo...@ac...