Thanks Pat. An ODBC connection only needs to know the username and password, and possibly the database name, but even that is not really required. So username and password are the minimal requirements.
The idea how this works is the user normally configures the connection parameters in /etc/odbc.ini (when using UnixODBC on Linux for example), and then the ActiveRecord ODBC adapter simply connects to a named record in odbc.ini with the given username and password (the same procedure should happen on Windows machines too). As an example I have this in my odbc.ini: [virtualbox] Driver = FreeTDS Description = ODBC conection to VirtualBox WinXP running SQL Server Trace = No Servername = virtualbox Database = myproject_development The name of this connection is [virtualbox]. In my database.yml I then have: development: adapter: sqlserver mode: ODBC dsn: virtualbox username: something password: secret So the adapter part loads http://github.com/rails-sqlserver/2000-2005-adapter (if you have it installed..this is the one to use out of all the various versions out there), the adapter then uses the Ruby ODBC library and tells it to connect to a source named "virtualbox" (from the 'dsn' part)..with the user/pass provided. If I then, after connecting, do: irb> ActiveRecord::Base.connection.instance_variable_get(:@connection_options) I get: => ["DBI:ODBC:virtualbox", "something", "secret"] And of course: irb> ActiveRecord::Base.connection.class => ActiveRecord::ConnectionAdapters::SQLServerAdapter Not sure if this helps..I hope it does, as it took me a while to figure out the whole logic behind how the ODBC stuff actually works. In fact there's one more component that comes AFTER the ODBC adapter..and that's the driver (FreeTDS) which actually says WHERE (ip address) the database is and how to connect to it, but that part is not visible to Rails nor Ruby in any way..so I left it out of the explanation. But the whole route is database.yml -> ActiveRecord -> SQLServerAdapter -> Ruby ODBC -> UnixODBC (odbc.ini) -> FreeTDS -> target database (Windows XP running SQL Server). Casper -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thinking Sphinx" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/thinking-sphinx?hl=en.
