Using the CData ODBC Driver for Sybase in PyCharm

The CData ODBC Drivers can be used in any environment that supports loading an ODBC Driver. In this tutorial we will explore using the CData ODBC Driver for Sybase from within PyCharm. Included are steps for adding the CData ODBC Driver as a data source, as well as basic PyCharm code to query the data source and display results.

To begin, this tutorial will assume that you have already installed the CData ODBC Driver for Sybase as well as PyCharm.

Add Pyodbc to the Project

Follow the steps below to add the pyodbc module to your project.

1. Click File -> Settings to open the project settings window.
2. Click Project Interpreter from the Project: YourProjectName menu.
3. To add pyodbc, click the + button and enter pyodbc.
4. Click Install Package to install pyodbc.

Connect to Sybase

You can now connect with an ODBC connection string or a DSN. See the Getting Started section in the CData driver documentation for a guide to creating a DSN on your OS.

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, 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

Below is the syntax for a DSN:

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

Execute SQL to Sybase

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

import pyodbc

cnxn = pyodbc.connect('DRIVER={CData ODBC Driver for Sybase};User = myuser;Password = mypassword;Server = localhost;Database = mydatabase;Charset = iso_1;')
cursor = cnxn.cursor()
cursor.execute("SELECT Id, ProductName FROM Products WHERE ProductName = 'Konbu'")
rows = cursor.fetchall()
for row in rows:
 print(row.Id, row.ProductName)

After connecting to Sybase in PyCharm using the CData ODBC Driver, you will be able to build Python apps with access to Sybase data as if it were a standard database. If you have any questions, comments, or feedback regarding this tutorial, please contact us at [email protected].