Before installing the ODBC extension, you should set up your ODBC data sources if they do not already exist.
What is a data source?
A data source is an object that contains some data you would like to connect to. Examples of data sources are Access databases, Excel files, Oracle databases, etc...
How do I set up a data source?
On the Macintosh
You should have an ODBC driver already installed. If you are using a PPC machine, you need a PPC driver manager such as the Visigenic Mac PPC driver (now sold to Intersolv). You could also use the new Microsoft ODBC driver manager that comes with Microsoft Office 98 if it is PPC native (could someone confirm this? send email to henri@binarycompass.com).
You also need specific ODBC drivers for the data source types you will connect to. For example, if you are trying to connect to a Microsoft SQL Server, you will need the SQL Server driver. For Oracle, the Oracle driver. And so on...
Let us first assume your ODBC driver manager is installed. If it is not, please refer to the driver documentation.
To set up a data source, go to the control panel called "ODBC Setup PPC".
Click "Setup Data Sources."
Click "Add".
Select the driver you want to use, based on the data source type you want to connect to.
Name your data source, and provide a description and network ID of the server to connect to. Remember the data source name (DSN) you entered. It is very important for the next steps. You can write it down if you want, and case-sensitivity is critical.
You are done.
On to the next page !
On Windows
Select the control panel "ODBC".
Choose the tab "User DSN" or "System DSN". As of version 1.0b4r8, the Frontier ODBC extension does not support file-based DSNs.
Click "Add".
Select the driver you want to use, based on the data source type you want to connect to.
Name your data source, and provide a description and network ID of the server to connect to. Remember the data source name (DSN) you entered. It is very important for the next steps. You can write it down if you want, and case-sensitivity is critical.
You are done.
On to the next page !
(Note: Even though you can use Excel data sources and other esoteric non-SQL data sources, I don't recommend it. It is quite tricky to figure out the Excel notation for the ODBC connection, and you're much better off using COM/Visual Basic for connecting to Excel)
Page 1: Before the installation
Page 2: Installation of the ODBC extension to Frontier
Page 3: ODBC Functions
Page 4: ODBC Query Tool
Page 5: Old DLL Versions
Page 6: Known Bugs and Limitations
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