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How do I supply connection string attributes in my Perl DBI->connect call?

From DBD::ODBC 0.21, you can put all of the connection attributes specified in your odbc.ini file in the connection string passed to DBI->connect().

For example, suppose your odbc.ini file looked like this:

[dsn_name]
ServerPort = demo.easysoft.com:8888;
LogonUser = fred
LogonAuth = password
TargetDSN = remotedsn

You can remove the need for the odbc.ini file and use the following Perl instead:

my $DSN = 'DRIVER={ODBC-ODBC Bridge};ServerPort=demo.easysoft.com:8888;';
$DSN = $DSN . 'LogonUser=fred;LogonAuth=password;TargetDSN=remotedsn';

my $dbh = DBI->connect("dbi:ODBC:$DSN",
                       "database_user",
                       "database_password")
          || die "Database connection failed: $DBI::errstr";

This can be particularly useful if you want to hide your user name and password. For example, you don't want authentication details stored in plain text in the odbc.ini file. Your Perl program could also retrieve the user name and password from another file or even prompt for them.