Automation Guide Action-based testing language Built-in actions System actions Database

 create connection string

create connection string

Description

Generate a connection string to a specified database.

Arguments

• variable

  (Optional) Name of variable to receive the returned connection string.

• driver

  (Optional) Name of the ODBC driver specified for the current connection.

• host

  (Use only for DBMS sources, not Excel) DBMS server hostname or IP address. (Optionally, an instance name may also be appended, preceded with a backslash. Example: myhost\myinstance.)

• port

  (Optional for DBMS sources; not used for Excel) Port of DBMS server. (Defaults: MSSQL use port 1433; MySQL uses port 3306.)

• database name

  (Optional) Name of database to be connected to.

• username

  (Optional) Username with which to log on to database.

• password

  (Optional) Password for database account specified by username.

• others

  (Optional) Other connection string parameter(s) applicable to the host DBMS, in the form of key-value pairs separated by semicolons.

Notes

• This action is generally invoked as part of a sequence of actions to allow the test to access a data source. (See Testing with databases for more information.)

• The nature of a connection string – that is, the parameters that apply to it – is specific to the type of data source that it targets. More information on connection strings is available from the website www.connectionstrings.com/.

• If connecting to a MySQL database:

  • If any of the associated execute sql calls are to contain multiple queries in their command arguments, the others argument must include the setting Option=67108864;.
  • If creating a Unicode-supported connection with the FreeTDS ODBC driver, others must contain ClientCharset=UTF-8;.

• Use of a data source name (DSN) is supported. DSNs may be specified in the others argument with the following formats:

  • User and System DSNs: DSN=myDsn;
  • File DSNs: FILEDSN=c:\myDsnFile.dsn; (Refer to Creating a Data Source Name (DSN) in Windows for further details.)

• If the variable in argumentvariablehas not been declared, the action creates it as a global.

• If the variable argument is left empty, TestArchitect supplies a global variable with the name _result.

• This action supports the <ignore> modifier. If the string <ignore> is present as the value of any of the arguments, or any argument contains an expression that evaluates to <ignore>, the action is skipped during execution.

Applicable Built-In Settings

The following settings are applicable to this action: remove double quotes from cell.

Applicable Controls

This action is applicable to the following controls: none.

Example

The following example illustrates the process of connecting to, and using, a database from within a test, of which creating a connection string is the first step.

Action Lines

Result

Related concepts

Testing with databases