The connection parameters are strings used to specify how to connect to a database engine or a network server. The string is a list of parameter settings in the form of KEYWORD=value, delimited by semicolons.
The keywords are defined from the following table.
Verbose keyword | Short form |
Database Account | UID or USER |
Password | PWD or PASSWORD |
Role | ROLE |
Data Source Name | DSN |
Driver | DRIVER |
Database | DBNAME or DATABASE |
Client | CLIENT |
Character Set | CHARSET or CHARACTERSET |
Set read only | READONLY |
Set nowait | NOWAIT |
Dialect | DIALECT |
Set quoted identifier | QUOTED |
Set sensitive identifier | SENSITIVE |
Set auto quoted identifier | AUTOQUOTED |
File DSN | FILEDSN |
Save DSN | SAVEDSN |
The ODBC function SQLDriverConnect uses these keys in the following sequence, first taking the defined attributes, specified in the connection string, then taking the missing information from the specified FILEDSN or DSN.
If the parameter SAVEDSN, is in the connection string, then the parameters, which were supplied by the successful connection, will be saved. Note the password is saved in an encrypted format.