Who would have thought that such a narrow subject would intail such a lot of work.. Recently I decided to jump on this issue with prodding from my boss.... little did I know that the project had taken me 4 months with little headway... I am on a Sun Solaris sparc machine and have found that the most of my troubles... Linex versions can connect with OpenSource Sybase for free but Sybase isnt free for other boxes. ( money glutton hoards) This helps to complicate things greatly in companies who dont want to spend money ( profit hungry money gluttons aka my boss )
So far I have installed sucessfully FreeTDS (both .51 and .52) and have got it to connect to a MS SQL server. This was after a lot of work and trying new things untill I finally annoyed the freetds personel into helping a bit.
This connection is only in Unittests so dont get your hopes up.. corrently I also have perl 5.6.1 installed and have attempted to install DBD::Sybase but have had it fail numerous times( fail in test and a g_tds_err_handeler problem)..
Needless to say I am Not alone cause I have talked to 30+ people in the last week with the same problems. I am currently working on a way around this by using the Unittest and seeing if it will make a file for me to pipe into perl (not the best but hey when you are grasping at straws it works)

If ANYONE has gotten a good connection with all column types in C or Perl please let me know... Also if someone could help me out in the following conversions that would be extremely helpfull.

Varbinary
binary
int4
int8
int2
int1
datetime
time
date
or practically any other types
below is some of my c code following with the DBD::Sybase errors

/* Script writen my Harry Franks taken as example from FreeTDS using
FreeTDS as the backbone. */

#include <stdio.h>
#include <tds.h>

static char  software_version[]   = "$Id: t0005.c,v 1.1 2000/11/04 01:
+35:51 mark Exp $";
static void *no_unused_var_warn[] = {software_version, no_unused_var_w
+arn};

// Sets up the Socket and char/int to use with the SQl

int run_query(TDSSOCKET *tds, char *query);
char *value_as_string(TDSSOCKET *tds, int col_idx);

int main()
{

// the login and socket is setup by some files setup by FreeTDS
   TDSLOGIN *login;
   TDSSOCKET *tds;
   int verbose = 0;
   int rc;
   int i;

// Some arbitrary stup set up to test the quality of the server
//   (ability to handel large numbers)
   char *len200 = "012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
+123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789
+012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678
+90123456789";
   char large_sql[1000];

// print out a header to show its starting
   fprintf(stdout, "%s: Test show tables replies\n", __FILE__);

// login
   rc = try_tds_login(&login, &tds, __FILE__, verbose);
   if (rc != TDS_SUCCEED) {
      fprintf(stderr, "try_tds_login() failed\n");
      return 1;
   }

// drop the old test_table so we dont get old values 
   rc = run_query(tds, "DROP TABLE test_table");
   if (rc != TDS_SUCCEED) { return 1; }

// create the clean test table
   rc = run_query(tds, "CREATE TABLE test_table (id int, name varchar(
+255))");
   if (rc != TDS_SUCCEED) { return 1; }

// insert large values and stuff into the table so we can check it
   sprintf(large_sql, "INSERT test_table (id, name) VALUES (0, 'A%s')"
+, len200);
   rc = run_query(tds, large_sql);
   if (rc != TDS_SUCCEED) { return 1; }
   sprintf(large_sql, "INSERT test_table (id, name) VALUES (1, 'B%s')"
+, len200);
   rc = run_query(tds, large_sql);
   if (rc != TDS_SUCCEED) { return 1; }
   sprintf(large_sql, "INSERT test_table (id, name) VALUES (2, 'C%s')"
+, len200);
   rc = run_query(tds, large_sql);
   if (rc != TDS_SUCCEED) { return 1; }
   sprintf(large_sql, "INSERT test_table (id, name) VALUES (3, 'This i
+s a test..  Greg I broke it')", len200);
   rc = run_query(tds, large_sql);
   if (rc != TDS_SUCCEED) { return 1; }

   /*
    * The heart of the test the SELECT statement
    */
   rc = tds_submit_query(tds, "SELECT * FROM sysusers");

// while everything went fine print them out
   while ((rc=tds_process_result_tokens(tds))==TDS_SUCCEED) {
      while ((rc=tds_process_row_tokens(tds))==TDS_SUCCEED) {
         for (i=0; i<tds->res_info->num_cols; i++) {
            if (verbose == 0) {

// print out the data
               printf("col %i is %s\n", i, value_as_string(tds, i));
            }
         }
      }

// the test failed.... Why? 
      if (rc == TDS_FAIL) {
         fprintf(stderr, "tds_process_row_tokens() returned TDS_FAIL\n
+");
         return 1;
      }
      else if (rc != TDS_NO_MORE_ROWS) {
         fprintf(stderr, "tds_process_row_tokens() unexpected return\n
+");
         return 1;
      }
   }
   if (rc == TDS_FAIL) {
      fprintf(stderr, "tds_process_result_tokens() returned TDS_FAIL f
+or SELECT\n");
      return 1;
   }
   else if (rc != TDS_NO_MORE_RESULTS) {
      fprintf(stderr, "tds_process_result_tokens() unexpected return\n
+");
   }


// logout of the database
   try_tds_logout(login, tds, verbose);
   return 0;
}


/* Run query for which there should be no return results */
int run_query(TDSSOCKET *tds, char *query)
{
   int rc;

   rc = tds_submit_query(tds, query);
   if (rc != TDS_SUCCEED) {
      fprintf(stderr, "tds_submit_query() failed for query '%s'\n", qu
+ery);
      return TDS_FAIL;
   }

   while ((rc=tds_process_result_tokens(tds))==TDS_SUCCEED) {
      if (tds->res_info->rows_exist) {
         fprintf(stderr, "Error:  query should not return results\n");
         return TDS_FAIL;
      }
   }
   if (rc == TDS_FAIL) {
      /* probably okay - DROP TABLE might cause this */
      /* fprintf(stderr, "tds_process_result_tokens() returned TDS_FAI
+L for '%s'\n", query); */
   }
   else if (rc != TDS_NO_MORE_RESULTS) {
      fprintf(stderr, "tds_process_result_tokens() unexpected return\n
+");
      return TDS_FAIL;
   }

  return TDS_SUCCEED;
}

// the types that this expects or wants in a sql statement
//  varchar and int are only excepted at this time

char *value_as_string(
   TDSSOCKET  *tds,
   int         col_idx)
{
   static char  result[256];
   const int    type    = tds->res_info->columns[col_idx]->column_type
+;
   const char  *row     = tds->res_info->current_row;
   const int    offset  = tds->res_info->columns[col_idx]->column_offs
+et;
   const void  *value   = (row+offset);

   switch(type) {
      case SYBVARCHAR:
         strncpy(result, (char *)value, sizeof(result)-1);
         result[sizeof(result)-1] = '\0';
         break;
      case SYBINT4:
         sprintf(result, "%d", *(int *)value);
         break;
      default:
         sprintf(result, "Unexpected column_type %d", type);
         break;
   }
   return result;
}
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the perl error

install_driver(Sybase) failed: Can't load
'/var/tmp/hfranks/lib/perl5/site_perl/
5.6.1/sun4-solaris/auto/DBD/Sybase/Sybase.so' for module DBD::Sybase:
ld.so.1: /
var/tmp/hfranks/bin/perl: fatal: relocation error: file
/home/top/hfranks/hfrank
s2/hfranks2/lib/libct.so.0: symbol g_tds_err_handler: referenced symbo
+l
not foun
d at /var/tmp/hfranks/lib/perl5/5.6.1/sun4-solaris/DynaLoader.pm line 
+206.
 at (eval 4) line 3
Compilation failed in require at (eval 4) line 3.
Perhaps a required shared library or dll isn't installed where expecte
+d
 at newest.pl line 8
[download]