If you are using Oracle 11G - I strongly suggest that you do NOT use the Microsoft ODBC driver and use either the Oracle 11G or 10G ODBC driver instead. There are also some setting in the Oracle ODBC Driver Configuration one that you will want to be sure is set right.

Bind TIMESTAMP as DATE should be checked
Bind NUMBER as FLOAT should be checked

Believe me you want to do this - I spent a long time with some problems and this is the combination of things that I did to get everything working the way it should. Things may APPEAR to you they are ok - but in fact they might not be. The Microsoft or Oracle ODBC driver is very old and it is going to cause you a lot of problems and performance issues too. I even situations where the Microsoft one would give me fewer records than the Oracle one too - the results were not right - but unless you knew for sure what data you were expecting...it would of never been caught here.


>Thank you all for the support
>At the end I got the correct string but don't ask me what it means :) :
>
>Driver={Microsoft ODBC for Oracle};Server=(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=hostip)(PORT=1521))(CONNECT_DATA=(SID=test)));
>Uid=username;Pwd=mypassword;
>
>
>Version is 11g
>
>
>>Which version of Oracle are you connecting too? Depending upon which version of Oracle you have will make a difference on which ODBC driver you want to use. Everything may look fine now - but I've had significant issues with unexpected results if you're using certain ODBC drivers with some version of Oracle . One big issue I had was getting data that was pulled from a DBLINK in oracle - one ODBC driver works whereas another one does not...plus other things like truncated character strings and such - really odd things can happen.
>>
>>>Hi all
>>>
>>>I have no experiences with Oracle Database but I have to retrieve data from one :)
>>>
>>>I have connection pameters, and odbc driver installed on the PC where the connection seems to work, by using the windows form I mean.
>>>
>>>I'm trying to connect to the database by SQLSTRINGCONNECT trying to get a valid Handle but I can't
>>>
>>>here is what I have :
>>>
>>>
>>>Host: hostip
>>>Port: 1521
>>>Service_Name: servicename.loc
>>>
>>>User: username
>>>Pwd: mypassword
>>>
>>>anybody knows how the connection string should look ?
>>>
>>>actually i send this one
>>>
>>>Driver={Microsoft ODBC for Oracle};Port=1521;Server=hostip;Service_name=servicename.loc;Uid=username;Pwd=mypassword
>>>
>>>but i get the error : 1526 : connectivity error ..connectattr failed
>>>
>>>
>>>PLEASE HELP :)
>>>
>>>Thank you