access to MSSQL?

[Tom Hukins]

On Mon, Apr 07, 2008 at 10:03:57AM +0100, Jonathan Stowe wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-04-07 at 11:43 +0300, Michael wrote:
> > Anyone having an experience in fixing a program to be working in a linux
> > platform and to be retrieving data from MSSQL at windows PC?
> 
> Yes. There are several ways:
> 
>   a) use DBD::ODBC (with either the unixodbc or iOdbc libraries) with
> the FreeTDS drivers.
> 
>   b) use DBD::Sybase with either FreeTDS or Sybase libraries

I've encountered problems with both these solutions in certain
situations.  Sometimes they work fine, but it seems to depend on what
you do with them.  I've been working with an old MSSQL 7.0 database,
so I suspect that doesn't help.

>   c) use DBD::Proxy with a proxy service running on the Windows machine
> to do the real connection.

If I were starting again, I'd give this a serious try, only tunelling
through DBD::Gofer instead of DBD::Proxy.  I was very impressed by Tim
Bunce's talk about DBD::Gofer at last year's LPW.

This does mean you need to install Perl on the Windows machine, but it
means you benefit from more reliable database drivers.  I've run Perl
with various versions of MSSQL on Windows in the past and never
encountered driver problems.

> You probably want to ask in a more "help oriented" forum if you want
> more detail on any of the above.

I apologise for the non-confrontational nature of this reply.  I guess
I need more vimto.

Tom