[R] RODBC - problems using odbcDriverConnect without DSN

[Prof Brian Ripley]

As this message is from your (unstated but probably unixODBC) ODBC driver 
manager, it is nothing to do with RODBC nor R.  Most likely the syntax is 
wrong.

As for 'without a DSN needing to be set on every computer that runs it', 
you need the driver and driver manager installed on every such computer,
and a proper installation will have a symbolic declaration of the driver 
in odbcinst.ini in which case you can use DRIVER=MySQL or some such.
E.g.

> library(RODBC)
> con <- odbcDriverConnect("SERVER=localhost;DRIVER=MySQL;DATABASE=testdb")

works for me.


On Mon, 21 Jul 2008, Josiah Walker wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm trying to use RODBC without having to set up a DSN, using hte
> direct connection string in odbcDriverConnect.  My connection attempt
> looks something like:
>> odbcDriverConnect(connection = "SERVER=localhost;DRIVER={/usr/lib/odbc/libmyodbc.so};DATABASE=myDB;UID=reader;PASSWORD=insecure;")
>
> And this returns the message:
> Warning messages:
> 1: In odbcDriverConnect(connection = conn) :
>  [RODBC] ERROR: state IM002, code 0, message [unixODBC][Driver
> Manager]Data source name not found, and no default driver specified
> 2: In odbcDriverConnect(connection = conn) : ODBC connection failed
>
> I know this means it can't find x connection in the dsn... which means
> my connection string isn't recognised as valid.  I've used ODBC and
> ODBC connection strings before, but I can't work out why this wouldn't
> work here.  I can successfully create the same connection using a user
> DSN with the same settings as this, but this connection string won't
> work.  It's fairly important for this project that the code can
> connect without a DSN needing to be set on every computer that runs
> it.  Does anyone know if I'm missing something in my connection
> string, or can this not be done using RODBC?
>
> Thanks,
> Josiah.
>
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>

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595