Knowledge Base

You receive an "Invalid connection string attribute" error message when you add an "ODBC;" prefix to the connection string for CDatabase::OpenEx()

Article ID: 157126

Article Last Modified on 11/21/2006

Microsoft Foundation Class Library 4.2, when used with:
- Microsoft Visual C++ 4.2 Enterprise Edition
- Microsoft Visual C++ 4.2 Professional Edition
- Microsoft Visual C++ 5.0 Enterprise Edition
- Microsoft Visual C++ 5.0 Professional Edition
- Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 Enterprise Edition
- Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 Professional Edition
- Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 Standard Edition

This article was previously published under Q157126

SYMPTOMS

When you specify a connection string that begins with the characters ODBC;, CDatabase::OpenEx() does not behave as expected.

OpenEx() may fail to open an ODBC datasource using a connection string that worked with Open(). Some drivers may appear to ignore information in the connection string, such as the userid and password. You may also get an error message in the output window similar to the following:

Invalid connection string attribute

CAUSE

CDatabase::OpenEx() does not accept a connection string beginning with ODBC;.

RESOLUTION

Remove the ODBC; prefix from the connection string for OpenEx().

MORE INFORMATION

CDatabase::Open() removes the ODBC; prefix from the connection string before passing it to OpenEx().

If an invalid connection string is passed to the driver, it will look in the registry for connection information.

REFERENCES

Visual C++ Books Online Help for CDatabase::OpenEx().

Visual C++ Books Online Help for SQLDriverConnect().

Additional query words: MfcDatabase

Keywords: kberrmsg kbtshoot kbdatabase kbprb KB157126