Okay, I am very close. I am trying to connect to both
SQL Server and Oracle 8. I do have the ODBC drivers on the
machine but do not want to create all the DSNs on each machine.

The following connection string works as is (server, database,
uid and pwd changed to protect the innocent):

cconn = "driver={SQL Server};server=ipaddr; database=db;uid=user;pwd=password;"

After running the next statement I successfully connect to the
server:

xx=sqlstringconnect(cconn)

So I figured that this would be easy to do on Oracle also. I
used the following connection string:

cconn = "driver={Oracle ODBC Driver};server=ipaddr;database=
db;uid=user;pwd=password;"

When I tried ?SQLStringConnect(cconn) using the Oracle specific
information I get an Oracle ODBC Driver Connection dialog box that asks me for the Server Name. After I enter the same value passed
in the database argument to the Service Name the connection succeeds.

What is the name of the parameter to pass instead of database for the Oracle connection to work without displaying the dialog box?

Tom Bellmer