access to MSSQL?

[Dirk Koopman]

Tom Hukins wrote:
> 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.

This is important and I agree with it wholeheartedly. Neither (a) nor 
(b) are straightforward, drop-in, solutions. You will need to do a lot 
of sucking + seeing. It appears that TIMTOWTODI does not just apply to 
perl.  I did find the more modern versions of MSSQL more stable and less 
cranky. I was working with old version 7 (which we dumped) during 2003's 
"currency" (that was OK) and with 2005 in beta on MSDN (and that was OK 
and a bit faster than 2003).

> 
>>   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.

I will bear this in mind for the next time :-)

> 
>> 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.
> 

Hurrumph, whatever next? Unbiased, useful advice? Surely there is a rule 
against that somewhere?