DBD::ODBC::FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions for DBD::ODBC
perldoc DBD::ODBC::FAQ
($Revision: 12806 $)
See LongReadLen in the DBI docs.
Example:
$dbh->{LongReadLen} = 20000; $sth = $dbh->prepare("select long_col from big_table"); $sth->execute; etc
These, general questions lead to needing definitions.
The ODBC Driver is the driver that the ODBC manager uses to connect and interact with the RDBMS. You DEFINITELY need this to connect to any database. For Win32, they are plentiful and installed with many applications. For Linux/Unix, you can find a fairly comprehensive list at http://www.unixodbc.org/drivers.html.
The ODBC driver manager is the interface between an ODBC application (DBD::ODBC in this case) and the ODBC driver. The driver manager principally provides the ODBC API so ODBC applications may link with a single shared object (or dll) and be able to talk to a range of ODBC drivers. At run time the application provides a connection string which defines the ODBC data source it wants to connect to and this in turn defines the ODBC driver which will handle this data source. The driver manager loads the requested ODBC driver and passes all ODBC API calls on to the driver. In this way, an ODBC application can be built and distributed without knowing which ODBC driver it will be using.
However, this is a rather simplistic description of what the driver manager does. The ODBC driver manager also:
* Controls a repository of installed ODBC drivers (on UNIX this is the file odbcinst.ini).
* Controls a repository of defined ODBC data sources (on UNIX these are the files odbc.ini and .odbc.ini).
* Provides the ODBC driver APIs (SQLGetPrivateProfileString and SQLWritePrivateProfileString) to read and write ODBC data source attributes.
* Handles ConfigDSN which the driver exports to configure data sources.
* Provides APIs to install and uninstall drivers (SQLInstallDriver).
* Maps ODBC versions e.g. so an ODBC 2.0 application can work with an ODBC 3.0 driver and vice versa.
* Maps ODBC states between different versions of ODBC.
* Provides a cursor library for drivers which only support forward-only cursors.
* Provides SQLDataSources and SQLDrivers so an application can find out what ODBC drivers are installed and what ODBC data sources are defined.
* Provides an ODBC administrator which driver writers can use to install ODBC drivers and users can use to define ODBC data sources.
The ODBC Driver Manager is the piece of software which interacts with the drivers for the application. It "hides" some of the differences between the drivers (i.e. if a function call is not supported by a driver, it 'hides' that and informs the application that the call is not supported. DBD::ODBC needs this to talk to drivers.
Under Win32, you usually get the ODBC Driver Manager as part of the OS. Under Unix/Linux you may have to find and build the driver manager yourself. The two main driver managers for Unix are unixODBC (http://www.unixodbc.org) and iODBC (http://www.iodbc.org).
It is strongly advised you get an ODBC Driver Manager before trying to build DBD::ODBC unless you intend linking DBD::ODBC directly with your driver.
For a reasonable description of ODBC on Unix/Linux see http://www.easysoft.com/developer/interfaces/odbc/linux.html
DBD::ODBC uses the driver manager to talk to the ODBC driver(s) on your system. You need both a driver manager and driver installed and tested before working with DBD::ODBC. You need to have a DSN (see below) configured and TESTED before being able to test DBD::ODBC.
The DSN is a way of referring to a particular driver and database by any name you wish. The DSN is usually a key to a list of attributes the ODBC driver needs to connect to the database (e.g. ip address and port) but there is always a key which names the driver so the driver manager knows which driver to use with which data source. Do no confuse DSNs with ODBC connection strings or DBI's "$data_source" (the first argument to "connect" in DBI.
The $data_source argument to DBI is composed of 'dbi:DRIVER:something_else' where DRIVER is the name of the DBD driver you want to use (ODBC of course for DBD::ODBC). The "something_else" for DBD::ODBC can be a DSN name or it can be a normal ODBC connection string.
An ODBC connection string consists of attribute/value pairs separated with semicolons (;). You can replace "something_else" above with a normal ODBC connection string but as a special case for DBD::ODBC you can just use the DSN name without the usual ODBC connection string prefix of "DSN=dsn_name".
e.g.
ODBC connection string using fred DSN
Same as above (a special case).
This is known as a DSN-less connection string for obvious reasons.
DBD::ODBC used to come bundled with a driver manager but this became inconvenient when the driver manager was updated.
The two main ODBC Driver Managers for Unix are unixODBC (http://www.unixodbc/org) and iODBC (http://www.iodbc.org).
If you are running a packaged Linux like RedHat, Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse etc etc you'll usually find it packaged with unixODBC and using the package manager to install it is fairly straight forward. However, make sure that if the driver manager is split into multiple packages you install the development package as well as that contains the C header files required by DBD::ODBC.
If you cannot find an ODBC Driver Manager package for your OS you can download the source tar files for either of the driver managers above and build it yourself.
You have loads of choices (in no particular order):
* using DBI::ProxyServer or DBD::Gofer. You'll need the former if you use transactions.
* using a commercial ODBC Driver or bridge like the ones from Easysoft or Openlink.
* using FreeTDS an open source TDS library which includes an ODBC Driver.
* using DBD::Sybase and Sybase libraries.
There are basically two choices:
* a commercial ODBC Bridge like the ones from Easysoft or OpenLink.
* using mdbtools although as of writing it has not been updated since June 2004, only provides read access and seems to be a little buggy.
Please, please test your configuration of ODBC and driver before trying to test DBD::ODBC. Most of the time, this stems from the fact that the DSN (or ODBC) is not configured properly. unixODBC comes with a small program isql and iODBC comes with odbctest and you should use these to test your ODBC configuration is working properly first.
The code I'm using is below:
$sth->bind_param(1, $str, $DBI::SQL_LONGVARCHAR); ^^^
The problem is that DBI::SQL_LONGVARCHAR is not the same as $DBI::SQL_LONGVARCHAR and that $DBI::SQL_LONGVARCHAR is an error!
It should be:
$sth->bind_param(1, $str, DBI::SQL_LONGVARCHAR);
Multiple Active Statements (MAS) are concurrent statements created from the same database handle which both have pending actions on them (e.g. they both have executed a select statement but not retrieved all the available rows yet).
DBD::ODBC does support MAS but whether you can actually use MAS is down to the ODBC Driver.
By default MS SQL Server did not used to support multiple active statements if any of them were select statements. You could get around this (with caution) by changing to a dynamic cursor. There is a "hack" in DBD::ODBC which can be used to enable MAS but you have to fully understand the implications of doing so(see "DBD/ODBC/odbc_SQL_ROWSET_SIZE" and "DBD/ODBC/odbc_cursortype").
In MS SQL Server 2005, there is a new thing called MARS (Multiple Active Result Sets) which allows multiple active select statements but it has some nasty implications if you are also doing transactions. To enable MARS from DBD::ODBC add "MARS_Connection=Yes" to the connection string as in:
$h->DBI->connect('dbi:ODBC:DSN=mydsn;MARS_Connection=Yes;');
For other drivers it depends. I believe various Oracle ODBC drivers do support multiple active statements as myodbc does.
Think carefully before using multiple active statements. It is probably not portable and there is nearly always a better way of doing it.
If anyone wants to report success with a particular driver and multiple active statements I will collect them here.
If you are using the Oracle or Microsoft ODBC drivers then you may get the following error when inserting dates into an Oracle database:
[Oracle][ODBC]Datetime field overflow. (SQL-22008)
If you do then check v$nls_parameters and v$parameter to see if you are using a date format containing the RR format. e.g.,
select * from v$nls_parameters where parameter = 'NLS_DATE_FORMAT' select * from v$parameter where name = 'nls_date_format'
If you see a date format like 'DD-MON-RR' (e.g., contains an RR) then all I can suggest is you change the date format for your session as I have never been able to bind a date using this format. You can do this with:
alter session set nls_date_format='YYYY/MM/DD'
and use any format you like but keep away from 'RR'.
You can find some test code in the file examples/rtcpan_28821.pl which demonstrates this problem. This was originally a rt.cpan issue which can be found at http://rt.cpan.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=28821.
As an aside, if anyone is reading this and can shed some light on the problem I'd love to hear from you. The technical details are:
create table rtcpan28821 (a date) insert into rtcpan28821 values('23-MAR-62') fails
Looking at the ODBC trace, SQLDescribeParam returns:
data type: 93, SQL_TYPE_TIMESTAMP size: 19 decimal digits: 0 nullable: 1
and DBD::ODBC calls SQLBindParameter with:
ValueType: SQL_C_CHAR ParameterType: SQL_TYPE_TIMESTAMP ColumnSize: 9 DecimalDigits: 0 Data: 23-MAR-62 BufferLength: 9
If you are creating temporary objects (e.g., temporary tables) in SQL Server you find they have disappeared when you attempt to use them. Temporary objects only have a lifetime of the session they are created in but in addition, they cannot be created using prepare/execute. e.g., the following fails:
$s = $h->prepare('select * into #tmp from mytable'); $s->execute; $s = $h->selectall_arrayref('select * from #tmp');
with "Invalid object name '#tmp'". Your should read http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/library/ms131667.aspx which basically says Prepared statements cannot be used to create temporary objects on SQL Server 2000 or later.... The proper way to avoid this is to use the do method but if you cannot do that then you need to add the "odbc_exec_direct" attribute to your prepare as follows:
do
my $s = $h->prepare('select * into #tmp from mytable', { odbc_exec_direct => 1});
See "odbc_exec_direct".
If you are running a 32bit Perl on a 64bit Windows machine you will need to be aware there are two ODBC administrators and you need to create your DSNs with the right one. The ODBC Administrator you get to from Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Data Sources is the 64bit one and data sources created here will not be visible or useable from 32bit applications. The ODBC administrator you need to use for 32bit applications can be found at X:\windows\syswow64\odbcad32.exe.
This should be a DBI faq, actually, but this has somewhat of an Win32/ODBC twist to it.
Typically, the Web server is installed as an NT service or a Windows 95/98 service. This typically means that the web server itself does not have the same environment and permissions the web developer does. This situation, of course, can and does apply to Unix web servers. Under Win32, however, the problems are usually slightly different.
Under Win32 take care to define your DSN as a system DSN, not as a user DSN. The system DSN is a "global" one, while the user is local to a user. Typically, as stated above, the web server is "logged in" as a different user than the web developer. This helps cause the situation where someone asks why a script succeeds from the command line, but fails when called from the web server.
For file based drivers, rather than client server drivers, the file path is VERY important. There are a few things to keep in mind. This applies to, for example, MS Access databases.
1) If the file is on an NTFS partition, check to make sure that the Web service user has permissions to access that file.
2) If the file is on a remote computer, check to make sure the Web service user has permissions to access the file.
3) If the file is on a remote computer, try using a UNC path the file, rather than a X:\ notation. This can be VERY important as services don't quite get the same access permissions to the mapped drive letters and, more importantly, the drive letters themselves are GLOBAL to the machine. That means that if the service tries to access Z:, the Z: it gets can depend upon the user who is logged into the machine at the time. (I've tested this while I was developing a service -- it's ugly and worth avoiding at all costs).
Unfortunately, the Access ODBC driver that I have does not allow one to specify the UNC path, only the X:\ notation. There is at least one way around that. The simplest is probably to use Regedit and go to (assuming it's a system DSN, of course) HKEY_LOCAL_USERS\SOFTWARE\ODBC\"YOUR DSN" You will see a few settings which are typically driver specific. The important value to change for the Access driver, for example, is the DBQ value. That's actually the file name of the Access database.
The ability to connect without a full DSN was introduced in version 0.21.
Example (using MS Access):
my $DSN = 'driver=Microsoft Access Driver(*.mdb);dbq=\\\\cheese\\g$\\perltest.mdb'; my $dbh = DBI->connect("dbi:ODBC:$DSN", '','') or die "$DBI::errstr\n";
The above sample uses Microsoft's UNC naming convention to point to the MSAccess file (\\cheese\g$\perltest.mdb). The dbq parameter tells the access driver which file to use for the database.
Example (using MSSQL Server):
my $DSN = 'driver={SQL Server};Server=server_name;database=database_name;uid=user;pwd=password;'; my $dbh = DBI->connect("dbi:ODBC:$DSN") or die "$DBI::errstr\n";
DBD::ODBC attempts to use the ODBC API SQLDescribeParam to obtain information about parameters in parameterised SQL. e.g.,
SQLDescribeParam
insert into mytable (column1) values(?)
The ? is a parameter marker. You supply the parameter value (in this case parameter 1) with a call to the bind_param method or by adding the parameter to the execute method call. When DBD::ODBC sees the parameter marker in the SQL it will call SQLDescribeParam to obtain information about the parameter size and type etc (assuming your ODBC driver supports SQLDescribeParam).
?
bind_param
execute
When you call SQLDescribeParam in the MS SQL Server ODBC driver the driver will scan your SQL attempting to discover the columns in your database the parameters align with. e.g., in the above case the parameter to be bound is linked with "column1" so SQLDescribeParam should return information about "column1". The SQL Server ODBC driver finds information about "column1" (in this example) by creating SQL such as:
select column1 from mytable where 1 = 2
then looking at the column details. Unfortunately, some SQL confuses SQL Server and it will generate SQL to find out about your parameters which examines the wrong columns and on rare occasions it may even generate totally incorrect SQL. The test case t/rt_39841.t domonstrates a couple of these.
The upshot of this is that DBD::ODBC is sometimes lied to about parameters and will then bind your parameters incorrectly. This can lead to later errors when execute is called. This happens most commonly when using parameters in SQL with sub-selects. For example:
create table one (a1 integer, a2 varchar(10)) create table two (b1 varchar(10), b2 varchar(20)) insert into one values(1, 'aaaaaaaaaa') insert into two values('aaaaaaaaaa','bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb') select b1, (select a2 from one where a2 = b1) from two where b2 = ? param 1 bound as 'bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb'
Clearly in this example, the one and only parameter is for two.b2 which is a varchar(20) but when SQL Server rearranges your SQL to describe the parameter it issues:
select a2 from one where 1 = 0
and DBD::ODBC is told the parameter is a VARCHAR(10). In DBD::ODBC 1.17 this would then lead to a data truncation error because parameter 1 would be bound as 'bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb' but with a column size of 10 as that is what SQLDescribeParam returned. DBD::ODBC 1.17_1 (and later) works around this problem for VARCHAR columns because it is obvious a VARCHAR parameter of length 20 cannot have a column size of 10 so the column size is increased to the length of the parameter.
However, a more difficult error can occur when SQL Server describes the parameter as totally the wrong type. The first example in t/rt_39841.t demonstrates this. SQL Server describes a VARCHAR parameter as an integer which DBD::ODBC has little choice to believe but when something like 'bbbbbbbbbb' is bound as an integer, SQL Server will then return an error like "invalid value for cast specification". The only way around this is to specifically name the parameter type. e.g.,
create table one (a1 integer, a2 varchar(20)) create table two (b1 double precision, b2 varchar(8)) insert into one values(1, 'aaaaaaaaaa') insert into two values(1, 'bbbbbbbb') select b1, ( select a2 from one where a1 = b1 ) from two where b2 = ? param 1 bound as 'bbbbbbbbbb'
Clearly parameter 1 is a varchar(8) but SQL Server rearranges the SQL to:
select a1 from one where 1 = 2
when it should have run
select b2 from two where 1 = 2
As a result parameter 1 is described as an integer and this leads to the problem. To workaround this problem you would need to bind parameter 1 naming the SQL type of the parameter using something like:
use DBI qw(:sql_types); bind_param(1, 'bbbbbbbbbb', SQL_VARCHAR);
as omitting SQL_VARCHAR will cause DBD::ODBC to use the type SQLDescribeParam returned.
See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/269011 on the microsoft web site for a bug you may have hit.
In Perl the most common reason for this is that you have bound column data in SQL which does not match the column type in the database and the ODBC driver cannot perform the necessary conversion. DBD::ODBC mostly binds all column data as strings and lets the ODBC driver convert the string to the right column type. If you supply a string which cannot be converted to the native column type you will get this error e.g., if you attempt to bind a non-datetime string to a datetime column or a non-numeric string to a numeric column.
If you are using a MS SQL Server driver and named parameters to procedures be very careful to use then in the sasme order they are defined in the procedure. i.e., if you have a procedure like this:
create procedure test @param1 varchar(50), @param2 smallint as begin .. end
then ensure if you call it using named parameters you specify them in the same order they are declared:
exec test @param1=?,@param2=?
and not
exec test @param2=?,@param1=?
The reason for this is that all SQL Server drivers we have seen describe procedures parameters in the order they are declared and ignore the order they are used in the SQL. If you specify them out of order DBD::ODBC will get details on p1 which are really for p2 etc. This can lead to data truncation errors and all sort of other problems it is impossible for DBD::ODBC spot or workaround.
Also see "Why do I get "Datetime field overflow" when attempting to insert a date into Oracle?".
Here is some example code binding dates; some work, some don't, see comments.
use DBI; use strict; # table is "create table martin (a date, b int)" my $h = DBI->connect; $h->do(q{alter session set nls_date_format='DD-MON-YY'}); my $s = $h->prepare(q{select * from v$nls_parameters where parameter = 'NLS_DATE_FORMAT'}); $s->execute; print DBI::dump_results($s); my $date = '30-DEC-99'; my $dateodbc = qq/{ d '1999-12-30'}/; # the following works ok - resulting in 2099-12-30 being inserted $h->do(qq{insert into martin values ('$date', 1)}); # the following works resulting in 1999-12-30 being inserted $h->do(qq{insert into martin values ($dateodbc, 2)}); # fails eval { my $s = $h->prepare(q{insert into martin values(?,3)}); $s->bind_param(1, $date); # fails # Numeric value out of range: invalid character in date/time string (SQL-22003) $s->execute; }; # works resulting in 2099-12-30 being inserted eval { my $s = $h->prepare(q{insert into martin values(?,4)}); $s->bind_param(1, $date, DBI::SQL_VARCHAR); $s->execute; }; # works resulting in 1999-12-30 being inserted eval { my $s = $h->prepare(q{insert into martin values(?,5)}); $s->bind_param(1, $dateodbc); $s->execute; };
In general, when using an ODBC driver you should use the ODBC syntax for dates, times and timestamps as those are the only formats an ODBC has to support.
In the above case with Oracle, the date parameter is described as a SQL_TYPE_DATE SQL type so by default DBD::ODBC binds your parameter as a SQL_TYPE_DATE. If you use '30-DEC-99' then that means the C type is SQL_CHAR and the SQL type is SQL_TYPE_DATE so the driver is forced to parse the date before sending it to Oracle (that would mean knowing what your NLS_DATE_FORMAT is and it would also mean knowing all the magic special characters Oracle can use to define date formats).
If you override the bind type to SQL_VARCHAR then the driver sees SQL_CHAR => SQL_VARCHAR, nothing to do and hence Oracle itself does the translation - that is why the SQL_VARCHAR works.
Parts of this document were written by Tim Bunce, Jeff Urlwin and Martin J. Evans.
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.7 or, at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.
To install DBD::ODBC, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm
cpanm DBD::ODBC
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell install DBD::ODBC
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.