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The Sybase ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with Sybase, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access Sybase databases from virtually anywhere through a standard ODBC Driver interface.

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How to Connect to Sybase Data in Python on Linux/UNIX


Create Python applications on Linux/UNIX machines with connectivity to Sybase data. Leverage the pyodbc module for ODBC in Python.

The rich ecosystem of Python modules lets you get to work quicker and integrate your systems more effectively. With the CData Linux/UNIX ODBC Driver for Sybase and the pyodbc module, you can easily build Sybase-connected Python applications. This article shows how to use the pyodbc built-in functions to connect to Sybase data, execute queries, and output the results.

Using the CData ODBC Drivers on a UNIX/Linux Machine

The CData ODBC Drivers are supported in various Red Hat-based and Debian-based systems, including Ubuntu, Debian, RHEL, CentOS, and Fedora. There are also several libraries and packages that are required, many of which may be installed by default, depending on your system. For more information on the supported versions of Linux operating systems and the required libraries, please refer to the "Getting Started" section in the help documentation (installed and found online).

Installing the Driver Manager

Before installing the driver, check that your system has a driver manager. For this article, you will use unixODBC, a free and open source ODBC driver manager that is widely supported.

For Debian-based systems like Ubuntu, you can install unixODBC with the APT package manager:

$ sudo apt-get install unixodbc unixodbc-dev

For systems based on Red Hat Linux, you can install unixODBC with yum or dnf:

$ sudo yum install unixODBC unixODBC-devel

The unixODBC driver manager reads information about drivers from an odbcinst.ini file and about data sources from an odbc.ini file. You can determine the location of the configuration files on your system by entering the following command into a terminal:

$ odbcinst -j

The output of the command will display the locations of the configuration files for ODBC data sources and registered ODBC drivers. User data sources can only be accessed by the user account whose home folder the odbc.ini is located in. System data sources can be accessed by all users. Below is an example of the output of this command:

DRIVERS............: /etc/odbcinst.ini SYSTEM DATA SOURCES: /etc/odbc.ini FILE DATA SOURCES..: /etc/ODBCDataSources USER DATA SOURCES..: /home/myuser/.odbc.ini SQLULEN Size.......: 8 SQLLEN Size........: 8 SQLSETPOSIROW Size.: 8

Installing the Driver

You can download the driver in standard package formats: the Debian .deb package format or the .rpm file format. Once you have downloaded the file, you can install the driver from the terminal.

The driver installer registers the driver with unixODBC and creates a system DSN, which can be used later in any tools or applications that support ODBC connectivity.

For Debian-based systems like Ubuntu, run the following command with sudo or as root: $ dpkg -i /path/to/package.deb

For Red Hat systems and other systems that support .rpms, run the following command with sudo or as root: $ rpm -i /path/to/package.rpm

Once the driver is installed, you can list the registered drivers and defined data sources using the unixODBC driver manager:

List the Registered Driver(s)

$ odbcinst -q -d CData ODBC Driver for Sybase ...

List the Defined Data Source(s)

$ odbcinst -q -s CData Sybase Source ...

To use the CData ODBC Driver for Sybase with unixODBC, ensure that the driver is configured to use UTF-16. To do so, edit the INI file for the driver (cdata.odbc.sybase.ini), which can be found in the lib folder in the installation location (typically /opt/cdata/cdata-odbc-driver-for-sybase), as follows:

cdata.odbc.sybase.ini

... [Driver] DriverManagerEncoding = UTF-16

Modifying the DSN

The driver installation predefines a system DSN. You can modify the DSN by editing the system data sources file (/etc/odbc.ini) and defining the required connection properties. Additionally, you can create user-specific DSNs that will not require root access to modify in $HOME/.odbc.ini.

To connect to Sybase, specify the following connection properties:

  • Server: Set this to the name or network address of the Sybase database instance.
  • Database: Set this to the name of the Sybase database running on the specified Server.

Optionally, you can also secure your connections with TLS/SSL by setting UseSSL to true.

Sybase supports several methods for authentication including Password and Kerberos.

Connect Using Password Authentication

Set the AuthScheme to Password and set the following connection properties to use Sybase authentication.

  • User: Set this to the username of the authenticating Sybase user.
  • Password: Set this to the username of the authenticating Sybase user.

Connect using LDAP Authentication

To connect with LDAP authentication, you will need to configure Sybase server-side to use the LDAP authentication mechanism.

After configuring Sybase for LDAP, you can connect using the same credentials as Password authentication.

Connect Using Kerberos Authentication

To leverage Kerberos authentication, begin by enabling it setting AuthScheme to Kerberos. See the Using Kerberos section in the Help documentation for more information on using Kerberos authentication.

You can find an example connection string below: Server=MyServer;Port=MyPort;User=SampleUser;Password=SamplePassword;Database=MyDB;Kerberos=true;KerberosKDC=MyKDC;KerberosRealm=MYREALM.COM;KerberosSPN=server-name

/etc/odbc.ini or $HOME/.odbc.ini

[CData Sybase Source] Driver = CData ODBC Driver for Sybase Description = My Description User = myuser Password = mypassword Server = localhost Database = mydatabase Charset = iso_1

For specific information on using these configuration files, please refer to the help documentation (installed and found online).

You can follow the procedure below to install pyodbc and start accessing Sybase through Python objects.

Install pyodbc

You can use the pip utility to install the module:

pip install pyodbc

Be sure to import with the module with the following:

import pyodbc

Connect to Sybase Data in Python

You can now connect with an ODBC connection string or a DSN. Below is the syntax for a connection string:

cnxn = pyodbc.connect('DRIVER={CData ODBC Driver for Sybase};User=myuser;Password=mypassword;Server=localhost;Database=mydatabase;Charset=iso_1;')

Below is the syntax for a DSN:

cnxn = pyodbc.connect('DSN=CData Sybase Sys;')

Execute SQL to Sybase

Instantiate a Cursor and use the execute method of the Cursor class to execute any SQL statement.

cursor = cnxn.cursor()

Select

You can use fetchall, fetchone, and fetchmany to retrieve Rows returned from SELECT statements:

import pyodbc cursor = cnxn.cursor() cnxn = pyodbc.connect('DSN=CData Sybase Source;User=MyUser;Password=MyPassword') cursor.execute("SELECT Id, ProductName FROM Products WHERE ProductName = 'Konbu'") rows = cursor.fetchall() for row in rows: print(row.Id, row.ProductName)

You can provide parameterized queries in a sequence or in the argument list:

cursor.execute( "SELECT Id, ProductName FROM Products WHERE ProductName = ?", 'Konbu',1)

Insert

INSERT commands also use the execute method; however, you must subsequently call the commit method after an insert or you will lose your changes:

cursor.execute("INSERT INTO Products (ProductName) VALUES ('Konbu')") cnxn.commit()

Update and Delete

As with an insert, you must also call commit after calling execute for an update or delete:

cursor.execute("UPDATE Products SET ProductName = 'Konbu'") cnxn.commit()

Metadata Discovery

You can use the getinfo method to retrieve data such as information about the data source and the capabilities of the driver. The getinfo method passes through input to the ODBC SQLGetInfo method.

cnxn.getinfo(pyodbc.SQL_DATA_SOURCE_NAME)

You are now ready to build Python apps in Linux/UNIX environments with connectivity to Sybase data, using the CData ODBC Driver for Sybase.