FreeTDS Development Group

["James K. Lowden" <jklowden AT freetds.org>]

Marten Lehmann wrote:
> 
> http://www.freetds.org/userguide/odbcconnattr.htm describes UID and PWD 
> as "attributes used only in connection strings" and not as "attributes 
> that may appear in odbc.ini". But why is it like that?

Because of a belief on the part of the folks who wrote the ODBC driver
that odbc.ini is not a good place to store passwords.  

The fact that other ODBC drivers support the feature, though, suggests to
me that it would be OK if FreeTDS did, too.  If you sent a patch, I would
look for a way to get it applied.  Probably the driver should verify the
file's permissions are 600 before accepting the information.  

IMO it would be better if we supported ${HOME}/.netrc, which is used by
some FTP clients, fetchmail, and others.  That would distinquish between
server properties and user login properties.  

--jkl