ASA Database Administration Guide
Connecting to a Database
Working with ODBC data sources
On Windows operating systems, ODBC data sources are typically stored in the system registry. File data sources are an alternative, which are stored as files. In Windows, file data sources typically have the extension .dsn. They consist of sections, each section starting with a name enclosed in square brackets. DSN files are very similar in layout to initialization files.
To connect using a File Data Source, use the FileDataSourceName (FILEDSN) connection parameter. You cannot use both DataSourceName (DSN) and FileDataSourceName (FILEDSN) in the same connection.
One benefit of file data sources is that you can distribute the file to users. If the file is placed in the default location for file data sources, it is picked up automatically by ODBC. In this way, managing connections for many users can be made simpler.
Embedded SQL applications can also use ODBC file data sources.
To create an ODBC file data source (ODBC Administrator)
Start the ODBC Administrator, click the File DSN tab and click Add.
Select Adaptive Server Anywhere 9.0 from the list of drivers, and click Next.
Follow the instructions to create the data source.