Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I'm moving from an NT Perl platform to Linux Perl and I would still like to access existing SQL Server databases via ODBC or some other protocol. I'm having a hard time trying to find an open source software package to do this via Perl. Any solutions?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: MS SQL Server access from Linux
by maverick (Curate) on Aug 17, 2001 at 01:28 UTC
    It is possible, and there is a good discussion about it at Connecting to MS SQL Server from Perl-Linux. My advice is if you're going to go completely away from MS then put your efforts towards converting the database now instead of later...it has been my experience that none of these methods work as well (or as simply) as advertised.

    /\/\averick
    perl -l -e "eval pack('h*','072796e6470272f2c5f2c5166756279636b672');"

Re: MS SQL Server access from Linux
by RiotTown (Scribe) on Aug 17, 2001 at 01:31 UTC
    DBD::Sybase works well. Check it out here and a quick how-to here: howto
Re: MS SQL Server access from Linux
by MZSanford (Curate) on Aug 17, 2001 at 13:13 UTC
    As mav said, conversion now will eliminate some of the headaches later. I have used Sybase and MS SQL Server for some time and have found that they are very similar ... they were the same program until the late 80's, so it figures. If you cannot convert, i suggest the DBD::Sybase solution ... but even better would be trying to convert to sybase (free linux version (if i recall), and sp's like MSSQL).
    always more than one way to skin an amoebae
    -- MZSanford