StarQuest Ventures, Inc.PO Box 1076
Point Reyes Station, CA 94956
Telephone: 415-669-9619
FAX: 415-669-9639
Sales & Support: contact@starquest.com
URL: http://www.starquest.com
This directory contains the unixODBC Driver Manager as distributed with StarSQL for UNIX.
The version of unixODBC in this directory is 2.2.14p2.
For configuration and usage information, refer to the StarSQL for UNIX User's Guide and the Quick Start Guide to Using the StarSQL ODBC Driver for UNIX/Linux. The chapter "Customizing the unixODBC Driver Manager Configuration" in the StarSQL for UNIX User's Guide contains important information for users who may already have a version of unixODBC supplied with their Linux or UNIX operating system or supplied by another vendor.
unixODBC is an open source project available under the GNU Library General Public License (LGPL). For more information about unixODBC, including documentation, or to obtain the source, see http://www.unixodbc.org. Parts of unixODBC use Qt, which is a cross-platform application and UI framework available under both open source licenses (LGPL and GPL), as well as a commercial license - see http://qt.nokia.com/.
Special considerations for Solaris:
The following iconv-related patches should be installed when using unixODBC on Solaris 8:
Solaris 8:
Patch-ID# 113261-01
Keywords: UTF-8 ICONV
Synopsis: SunOS 5.8: UTF-8 locale ICONV patch
Date: Oct/11/2002
The following applications from unixODBC are included in $STARDIR/odbc/bin:
isql is a utility which can be used to submit SQL to a data source and to format/output results. It can be used in batch or interactive mode.
Syntax:
isql [options] DSN [UID [PWD]]
Options
-b Batch
-dx Delimit cols with x
-w Wrap results in an HTML table
-v Verbose
--version Display version number of isql
Using the command "isql -v DSN UID PWD" will run the application in an interactive mode in which you can enter SQL statements.
We recommend using the -v option in order to see error messages returned by the driver.
In addition to supplying ad-hoc query commands such as "SELECT * FROM MYTABLE", the "help" command can be used to make catalog calls; type "help help" to see a list of available commands:
help help - output this help
help - call SQLTables and output the result-set
help table_name - call SQLColumns for table_name and output the result-set
help catalog schema table type - call SQLTables with these arguments
where any argument may be specified as "" (for the empty string)
or null to pass a null pointer argument.
e.g.
help % "" "" "" - output list of catalogs
help "" % "" "" - output list of schemas
help null null b% null - output all tables beginning with b
help null null null VIEW - output list of views
isql also supports redirection and piping for batch processing:
Examples
cat My.sql | isql WebDB MyID MyPWD -w
Each line in My.sql must contain exactly 1 SQL command except for the last line which must be blank.
odbcinst is a command line interface to key functionality in the libodbcinst library and can be used to configure datasources from the command line or a shell script, as well as other system-related tasks. Type odbcinst to display its help message.
odbc_config displays details about the installation and configuration of the unixODBC package. Type odbc_config to display its help message.
ODBCConfig is a graphical program for the configuration of ODBC data sources. The interface is similar to ODBC Administrator on Windows. See the StarSQL for UNIX User's Guide for details.
These GUI programs can be used to browse and explore ODBC data sources.
DataManager can:
- drill down a data source
- edit and submit SQL (when an active Data Source is selected)
While drilling down a data source, you may encounter the error message "Can't SQLColumns". This is a known problem; a possible workaround is to set the DefaultQualifer setting
to the schema of the table in your ODBC DSN.
To use the SQL editor to submit SQL commands (either entered in the application window or input from a file):
There is a File Menu for Open & Save:
This application is similar to the odbctest program supplied by Microsoft with the ODBC SDK. It provides a GUI interface to invoking ODBC calls.
Note that odbctest is called "qtodbctest" when installed on SUSE Linux as part of the SUSE-supplied unixODBC-gui-qt RPM package.
Refer to the StarQuest tech note "Using StarSQL with the Perl DBI Module".
Refer to the StarQuest tech note "Using StarSQL with PHP and php-odbc".
StarQuest is preparing a tech note on using StarSQL and unixODBC with OpenOffice 2.x & 3.x. Contact StarQuest support for the latest information.
There are known issues with ODBC support in the 64-bit version of OpenOffice. We recommend either using the 32-bit version of OpenOffice and the 32-bit version of StarSQL, or use the JDBC support of either the 32-bit or 64-bit version of OpenOffice with StarSQL for Java.
See the document "OpenOffice.org 1.0, unixODBC, and MySQL", describing the use of unixODBC with OpenOffice.org 1.x (the open source version of StarOffice 6.0), available at http://www.unixodbc.org/doc.
To create a database document that other types of documents (e.g. text or spreadsheet documents) can use, Select File/New.. Database and fill in the dialogs for ODBC, etc.
To use the database document in other modules:
Text Document:
File/Mail Merge
Edit/Exchange Database and drag cell or row from database window to word processing window
Spreadsheet:
Choose View/Explorer, then use Explorer to drag to spreadsheet window
Choose View/Beamer - this displays the database in a window at the top you can drag a cell or row to a spreadsheet.
Presentation:
Choose View/Beamer. This displays the database in a window at the top you can drag a cell to a slide. Using View/Beamer, you can add criteria, sort, etc. You can use File/Autopilot to create a new query or a new table (based on existing database tables).
- Applixware 5.0 ships with unixODBC and works with StarSQL. Previous versions of Applixware shipped with other ODBC driver managers and may not work with StarSQL.
If you get an error "setuid to nnn: operation not permitted", this is because another user has previously used Shelf ODBC and the server process /opt/applix/axdata/axnet is already running under that user's ID. Request that the other user end his server process.
The JDBC-ODBC Bridge supplied with the IBM JDK for AIX expects to find an ODBC driver manager in a certain format (an archive "libodbc.a" containing a member named "libodbc.o"). On AIX, StarSQL will install an alternative directory $STARDIR/odbc/lib.ar containing the unixODBC driver manager in this format.
To use StarSQL and unixODBC with the JDBC-ODBC Bridge on AIX, include $STARDIR/odbc/lib.ar in your LIBPATH in place of $STARDIR/odbc/lib:
e.g.
LIBPATH=$STARDIR/odbc/lib.ar
export LIBPATH
Do not include both $STARDIR/odbc/lib and $STARDIR/odbc/lib.ar in your LIBPATH, as only the first one will be used. If you need access to both versions of the driver manager - i.e. you will be using the JDBC-ODBC Bridge as well as other applications that use the unixODBC driver manager in its normal format, you will either need to change your LIBPATH environment frequently, or wrap your applications in a shell script that sets the environment variable before invoking the application.
There may be other AIX applications that expect the driver manager in this format; if you see a message like the following, then try using the lib.ar version:
exec(): 0509-036 Cannot load program <program name> because of the following:
0509-027 Member libodbc.o is not found or file is not an archive.
0509-022 Cannot load library libodbc.a[libodbc.o].
unixODBC supports connection pooling - see http://www.unixodbc.org/doc/conn_pool.html for details.
To enable connection pooling, edit /usr/local/etc/odbcinst.ini:
* In the [ODBC] block, add Pooling = Yes
* In the [StarSQL] block, add a CPTimeout value, set to a non zero numeric value (the number of seconds a pooled connection will remain open if it is not being used)
e.g. CPTimeout=120
Pooling is only effective when used within a process. Note that there are some security risks that are described at http://www.unixodbc.org/doc/conn_pool.html
For additional hints, see the technical note titled "Common StarSQL for UNIX Error Messages" at http://www.starquest.com/Supportdocs/techStarSQL/browsesql.shtml.
Q: I'm getting the following error:
SQLState=08004, [StarSQL][StarSQL CLI Driver]Database server (unknown) V4R4M0 (QSQ04040) not supported by this version.
A: Make sure that swodbc.ini exists in $STARDIR/etc and that you have read access to it. If the problem persists, it is possible that you are connecting to a new version of DB2 that StarSQL is not prepared to handle. Contact StarQuest Support.
Resolving shared library references using ldd
If you suspect that there is a problem locating shared libraries, or you have multiple instances of a library and want to know which instance will be used (for instance, in the case of multiple ODBC driver managers), use the ldd command to list dynamic dependencies of executable files and shared libraries. ldd is available with most operating systems. For older (4.3.3) versions of AIX, dump -H provides a similar function, and an AIX version of ldd is available from http://www.han.de/~jum/aix/ldd.c.
Example:
$ cd $STARDIR/bin
$ ldd simpleconn.odbc
libodbc.so.1 => /opt/starsql/odbc/lib/libodbc.so.1
libC.so.5 => /usr/lib/libC.so.5
libm.so.1 => /usr/lib/libm.so.1
libw.so.1 => /usr/lib/libw.so.1
libthread.so.1 => /usr/lib/libthread.so.1
libc.so.1 => /usr/lib/libc.so.1
libdl.so.1 => /usr/lib/libdl.so.1
/usr/platform/SUNW,Sun-Blade-1500/lib/libc_psr.so.1
ODBC tracing
To turn on ODBC tracing, use the Tracing panel of ODBCConfig, or set the following in /usr/local/etc/odbcinst.ini:
[ODBC]
Trace = 1
Trace File = /tmp/sql.log
This will create a trace file /tmp/sql.log.
Be sure to turn off the trace feature when it is no longer needed, as it will affect performance; using odbcinst.ini turns on tracing for all users.
An individual user can turn on tracing by creating an [ODBC] block containing Trace and Trace File parameters in the user's $HOME/.odbc.ini file.
If you need to contact technical support, please provide the following information to help the support engineers address your issue. You can contact StarQuest via phone, email, or facsimile as indicated at the bottom of this page.
| Company Information | Address Phone Fax |
| Contact Information | First and Last Name of individual contact Email Address |
| Host Type | Hardware and Operating System (i.e., AS/400 V5R4) |
| Network Protocol/Gateways | Protocol and/or Gateways used (i.e., TCP/IP, HIS 2000) |
| Client Type | Client Type and Operating System (i.e., Windows 2008 SP2) |
| StarQuest Product, Version, and Source |
Which StarQuest product and what version is installed (i.e., StarSQL for Windows v5.50.02.18) Where you obtained the software (i.e., direct from StarQuest, name of specific reseller) |
| Problem Information | Provide as much detail as possible, including information about any application that is using the StarQuest product when the problem occurs and the exact error message that appears. |
StarQuest Ventures, Inc.
PO Box 1076
Point Reyes Station, CA 94956
Telephone: 415-669-9619
FAX: 415-669-9639
Sales & Support: contact@starquest.com
URL: http://www.starquest.com