OSQL(1)

💅 OSQL(1) — the FreeTDS manual, LOCAL section, and yes bestie we're doing this

okay so welcome to osql(1), straight out of the FreeTDS manual (that's the LOCAL one, iykyk) ✨ pull up a chair, this one's short and sweet and honestly kinda iconic.

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🎀 NAME 🎀

osql — a whole lil utility for testing your FreeTDS connections and queries 🦋

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

osql -S dsn -U username -P password [-I ini_directory]

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so osql is a diagnostic tool that ships as part of FreeTDS 💖 it's a Bourne shell script — yes, a script, she's humble — and what she does is check and report on your configuration files. If everything checks out OK, she invokes isql. slay.

heads up though: osql works only with the isql that comes with unixODBC. no substitutes, no swaps, periodt 💅

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🫶 OPTIONS 🫶

• -S dsn — the Data Source Name to which to connect, as known to odbc.ini. 👑
• -U username — database login name.
• -P password — database password. 🔐
• -I ini_dir — override the odbc.ini file location.

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🍓 EXAMPLE 🍓

say your odbc.ini has a section like this:

[myDSN]
servername = myserver
TDS_Version = 5.0

then you'd invoke osql as:

osql -S myDSN [...]

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🦋 FILES 🦋

• odbc.ini
• freetds.conf

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💀 NOTES 💀 (read these fr fr)

if you can connect with osql -S servername -U user -P passwd, then your FreeTDS ODBC installation is working ✅ that's the vibe check and you passed.

osql guesses where unixODBC might look for its odbc.ini by examining the binary. this is not always an effective approach 😭 if it doesn't work, you'll receive a report of candidate strings. kindly pass along the output to help improve the guessing — you're basically doing community service and we love that for you 🫶

if osql cannot intuit your odbc.ini directory, you can force the issue with the -I option. however — and this is the important part — you're then instructing osql what to test, not where unixODBC will eventually look. so your override is therefore only as good as you are 🙈 look carefully at the error output before overriding, ngl.

if you have suggestions for ways to make osql more useful as a diagnostic tool, please post them to the FreeTDS mailing list 💌 main character energy, honestly.

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⭐ HISTORY ⭐

osql first appeared in FreeTDS 0.65. a legend from day one 👑

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🌈 AUTHORS 🌈

the osql utility was written by James K. Lowdon. wait, no — James K. Lowden. thank you James 💜

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and that's the whole page, bestie 🎀💖 this one's FreeTDS 1.5.20, dated April 26, 2012 — go forth, connect, and slay your odbc.ini ✨🦋