在没有dsn的情况下使用RODBC连接到MS SQL

Question

I'm trying to set up a connection from ubuntu to mssql server with the RODBC package.

I did make it work with RJDBC but read the speed might be much slower than ODBC so I wanted to test it.

I don't have a dsn available, ip port databasename usr pwd is all the information I can use.

The code used with RJDBC which works is:

drv <- JDBC("com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver",
  "/media/sqljdbc4.jar")

RJDBC::dbConnect(drv, 'jdbc:sqlserver://ip:port;databaseName=databasename', 'usr', 'pwd') 

Tried alot around browsing different syntaxes but could not make it work.

RODBC::odbcDriverConnect('driver={SQL Server};server=ip:port;database=databasename;uid=usr;pwd=pwd)

Gives me the error: [unixODBC][Driver Manager]Data source name not found, and no default driver specified

Do I need to download drivers to the ubuntu machine? Thought they were included with the package.

Answer 1

The RODBC package doesn't include drivers. That would be unwieldy given how many possibilities there are. see https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/RODBC/vignettes/RODBC.pdf

"connection to the particular DBMS needs an ODBC driver : these may come with the DBMS or the ODBC driver manager or be provided separately by the DBMS developers, and there are third-party developers"

Microsoft provides drivers for Ubuntu: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=50419

You can add dsn entries to the /etc/odbc.ini file in most linux distros. See this for ubuntu https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ODBC