Setting up CA/400 ODBC Data Source

[Guest.Visitor]

I am new to setting up and accessing AS/400 data sources. Are there any server based software requirements for the CA/400 ODBC driver to access DB/400 libraries? The client I am working with has an AS/400 but has never used CA/400 ODBC with it. Any help is appreciated... I am sure it is pretty straight forward for those of you who have set this up over and over. Thanks in advance, Roger Remington

[Guest.Visitor]

Roger, As far as I know, there aren't any AS/400 things to set up except: you need to set up a relational database entry specifying the name of the 400 to be accessed. Use the AddRDBDirE command to set it up. The name of the database is the network name of the 400 and the location is *Local. If you didn't already know, the ODBC driver is a no-charge feature included with the Client Access CD. Bill

[Guest.Visitor]

I don't think there are any server-side issues. I've had pretty good luck setting up these ODBC data sources -- I learned a lot from the video "Integrating MS Access97 With the AS/400" (I think Midrange Computing put it out). The basic points are: a) You need a "*LOCAL" relational database entry on the AS/400 (use WRKRDBDIRE to check; if you don't have one, create one). b) You then go into "ODBC Data Sources" in your Windows Control Panel and create a new data source name using the CA ODBC driver (I create a "System" name, but if you've got different users signing on to the same PC you might want to use a "User" name -- alas, the CA driver doesn't seem to support "File" names). You can name this DSN anything you want -- the three things I pay attention to are: "General" tab: "System" = RDBE name on the AS/400 "User ID" = signon you want to user for the AS/400 "Server" tab: "Default libraries" = library list you want the connection to use (library names separated by commas). Maybe others can give you more input into all the bells and whistles, but I've found this basic approach seems to work pretty well. . . . Mike Naughton