PHP MS-SQL Extension On VMS?

[Robert Atkinson]

Has anyone managed to get a MS-SQL extension working on VMS, or been able to connect to a MS-SQL database from VMS using PHP?

Rob.

[Willem Grooters]

To access an MS-SQL database from VMS, you would need a driver on VMS, and AKAIK the only MS_SQL drivers that exist live on - you'd guess - Windows. There may be Linux reversed-engineered drivers available that you could redo on VMS. Perhaps using COM on VMS is an idea if you can/need to do development yourself.

The same applies to a PHP extension.

IIRC, MS_SQL is a derivate of Sybase. Would that be a way to go? (I don't know of a recent Sybase driver on VMS either; There used to be one ;))

Another apporach is accessing the MS-SQL database indirectly, in a Client/Server connection (I've done something similar accessing an Oracle database on Unix from 'anywhere' before SQL*Net was available)

Willem

[Jan van den Ende]

@Willem:

>>>
an Oracle database on Unix from 'anywhere' before SQL*Net was available
<<<

That seems strange.

Way back when, Oracle V3,x on VMS 3.x, when Oracle Development still had its home in Naarden, I was the system manager of the systems on which the first Oracle connection between two databases on two machines was realised.
(That was at the no-longer-existing Equity&Law in The Hague).
Very shortly thereafter, with Oracle V4, that was formalised into SQL*Net.
Only much later Oracle (V5?, V6?) became also available on (some) Unix(es?).
( And the changeover of Oracle DEVELOPMENT away from VMS to Unix was only in the V7 - V8 timeframe. Oracle used to play very nicely with VMS clustering up unto ORA V7).

But, an Oracle database on Unix before SQL*Net was available really needs some strange time warping!

fwiw

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

For all those rusty system managers (me included) :
http://www.oracle.com/timeline/index.html
http://www.oracle.com/oramag/profit/07-may/p27anniv_timeline.pdf (in 1 page)

I think Oracle 5 introduced sqlnet. But hey, I was working with V5 on a single VAX in that time and didn't even know networking existed.

Wim

[Robert Atkinson]

It appears there are a couple of ways to do this.

Attunity and a few others can do a reverse-bridge from VMS to Windows.

The other is FreeTDS, ported by Craig Berry. It looks like PHP can use the Sybase API to talk to FreeTDS, which I'm currently digging into.

Rob.

[Willem Grooters]

@Jan:
The working program was accessing a Unix based Oracle database from a Windows application, and SQL*Net was no option at the time (Management attitudes haven't changed very much in these years). It worked remarkably well for many, many years.

[Craig A Berry]

Robert,

As I mentioned off-forum, the pieces to do what you want are all freely available, but "some assembly required" definitely applies. PHP has been ported and the VMS-specific sources are available from HP (though there was a thread on comp.os.vms lately that you don't really get everything you need to do a build with that source kit). FreeTDS as you know, is also available. Building the two together and configuring everything to work together isn't rocket science, but it is work.

[Willem Grooters]

The PHP code is part of the WHOLE SWS source kit. You get it all in one big backup saveset. I don't know whether all sourcefiles are with it, My guess is they are, but there is no sure way to find out: amongst the bits and pieces missing are the files required to build the whole thing....

(If anyone succeeded to build it, please post the info!)
WG