The initialization file ODBC.INI contains specifications such as database name and database node name for a data source. For each data source, there is one entry consisting of two parts. The first part designates the data source name; it is enclosed in square [ ] brackets. The data source name can be selected freely.
The entries for the data source follow immediately. Generally, these are the connect parameters and the specification of the database server. The entries for one data source end with the start of an entry for a new data source.
All data source names known to the system are specified a second time in an additional section called [ODBC Datasources].
The data source name is passed to the SQLConnect function in the szDSN parameter or to the SQLDriverConnect function in the connect string.
For compatibility reasons, the old notation for the coding of serverdb and servernode names can be used on UNIX platforms. In the old notation, the connect specifications were found out from the szDSN parameter.
szDSN=<servernode>:<servername>
Example:
[ADABAS D] <-- denotes the data source name
Driver=C:\ADABAS\pgm\sqlod32.dll <-- ODBC driver path and name
ServerDB=MYDB <-- database server name
ServerNode=berlin
.....
[new section] <-- start of the next section