Adobe Dreamweaver CC 2015 - Manual (Page 554)

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Dynamic sites, pages and web forms
Last updated 6/3/2015
About connection strings
A connection string combines all the information your web application needs to connect to a database. Dreamweaver
inserts this string in your page’s server-side scripts for later processing by your application server.
A connection string for Microsoft Access and SQL Server databases consists of a combination of the following
parameters separated by semicolons:
Provider Specifies the OLE DB provider for your database. For example, here are parameters for common OLE DB
providers for Access, SQL Server, and Oracle databases, respectively:
Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;...
Provider=SQLOLEDB;...
Provider=OraOLEDB;...
For the parameter value of your OLE DB provider, see your provider vendor’s documentation, or consult your system
administrator.
If you don’t include a Provider parameter, then the default OLE DB provider for ODBC is used and you must specify
an appropriate ODBC driver for your database.
Driver Specifies the ODBC driver to use if you don’t specify an OLE DB provider for your database.
Server Specifies the server hosting the SQL Server database if your web application runs on a different server.
Database The name of a SQL Server database.
DBQ The path to a file-based database such as one created in Microsoft Access. The path is the one on the server
hosting the database file.
UID Specifies the user name.
PWD Specifies the user password.
DSN The data source name, if you use one. Depending on how you define the DSN on your server, you can omit the
connection string’s other parameters. For example, DSN=Results can be a valid connection string if you define the
other parameters when you create the DSN.
Connection strings for other kinds of databases may not use the parameters listed above, or will have different names
or uses for the parameters. For more information, see your database vendor’s documentation, or consult your system
administrator.
Here’s an example of a connection string that will create an ODBC connection to an Access database called trees.mdb:
Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};
DBQ=C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\Research\trees.mdb
Here’s an example of a connection string that will create an OLE DB connection to a SQL Server database called Mothra
located on a server called Gojira:
Provider=SQLOLEDB;Server=Gojira;Database=Mothra;UID=jsmith;
PWD=orlando8
Create a connection using a local DSN
Note: This section assumes you have set up an ASP application. It also assumes a database is set up on your local computer
or on a system to which you have network or FTP access.
You can use a data source name (DSN) to create an ODBC connection between your web application and your database.
A DSN is a name containing all the parameters needed to connect to a specific database using an ODBC driver.