clisp, plain-odbc, and connecting to a sql server database

Question

I'm having issues connecting to a sql server database from an openbsd box using unixODBC. When I use isql I get through just fine:

$ isql localProdSqlServer jegdemir GBE#oct 
+---------------------------------------+
| Connected!                            |
|                                       |
| sql-statement                         |
| help [tablename]                      |
| quit                                  |
|                                       |
+---------------------------------------+
SQL> 

so I know the DSN is setup and unixODBC is working properly. However when I crack open clisp and try to connect using plain-odbc I can't get there:

$ clisp

<..snip..>>

[1]> (asdf:oos 'asdf:load-op :plain-odbc)

<..snip..>

[2]> (setf *con* (plain-odbc:connect "localProdSqlServer" "jegdemir" "GBE#oct")) 
*** - [unixODBC][FreeTDS][SQL Server]Unable to connect to data source, error
      code 0, State: S1000.
The following restarts are available:
ABORT          :R1      Abort main loop
Break 1 [3]> 

I'm fairly new to lisp so I'm having a bit of trouble diagnosing the issue. Any help would be most appreciated.

Answer 1

Depending on how plain-odbc works, you may need to specify a DSN in /etc/odbc.ini, something like:

[localProdSqlServer]
Driver          = FreeTDS
Description     = localProdSqlServer TDS driver (Sybase/MS SQL)
Trace           = No
Servername      = localProdSqlServer
Database        = DATABASE_NAME

As an alternative, the CLSQL library has an ODBC backend that supports connection strings:

(clsql:connect '("friendly-server-name" "friendly-username" "" 
     :connection-string "DRIVER={FreeTDS};SERVER=localProdSqlServer;DATABASE=DATABASE_NAME;UID=jegdemir;PWD=GBE#oct;PORT=1433;TDS_Version=8.0;APP=clsql") 
           :database-type :odbc)

At work I use CLSQL to connect to SQL Server all the time.