# Ruby, rails, maxdb

**URL:** https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-rails-maxdb/20327
**Category:** ruby-talk
**Created:** [22 August 2005 08:11 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-rails-maxdb/20327 "2005-08-22T08:11:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Kristian\_Rink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9de0a6/32.png) [@Kristian\_Rink](https://rubytalk.org/u/Kristian_Rink)
#### Post date: [22 August 2005 08:11 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-rails-maxdb/20327/1 "2005-08-22T08:11:23Z")

</div>

Hi all;

being about to take a deep dive into ruby/rails (wanted to do this quite  
some time ago already) for developing a small intranet application, one  
short question: Around here we're running the GPL'ed SAP MaxDB to serve,  
well, SQL for several inhouse applications, and I'd like to connect  
ruby/rails to that database. I see there obviously is a working ODBC  
implementation for ruby, and the MaxDB linux/odbc drivers work pretty  
reliable. Only thing bugging me is that, looking through the rails  
documentation, I only see database adapters for mysql, postgresql,  
sqlite, oracle, sqlserver. Is there a way to use odbc / MaxDB instead? I  
don't mind using postgresql, but this would be, say, the "least best"  
option. 😉

Thanks in advance and have a great new week everyone  
Kris

> **···**
>
> --  
> Kristian Rink \* [http://www.fotolog.net/kawazu](http://www.fotolog.net/kawazu) \* [http://zimmer428.net](http://zimmer428.net)  
> icq: 48874445 \* jab: [kawazu@jabber.ccc.de](mailto:kawazu@jabber.ccc.de) \* fon: ++49 176 2447 2771  
> "Sei Du selbst die Veränderung, die Du in der Welt wünschst." (Gandhi)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![DHH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/258eb7/32.png) [@DHH](https://rubytalk.org/u/DHH)
#### Post date: [24 August 2005 12:08 UTC](https://rubytalk.org/t/ruby-rails-maxdb/20327/2 "2005-08-24T12:08:28Z")

</div>

> Only thing bugging me is that, looking through the rails  
> documentation, I only see database adapters for mysql, postgresql,  
> sqlite, oracle, sqlserver. Is there a way to use odbc / MaxDB instead?

There's no generic ODBC driver for Active Record because databases  
exposed through that are still different enough that we can't handle  
them in the same way. Thus, you can certainly use ODBC as a way to  
create a MaxDB driver, but a generic ODBC driver is not of much use.

I believe we had a thread on the problems trying to do an ODBC driver  
that worked both for Access and SQL Server some time back for further  
reference.

> **···**
>
> --  
> David Heinemeier Hansson  
> [http://www.loudthinking.com](http://www.loudthinking.com) -- Broadcasting Brain  
> [http://www.basecamphq.com](http://www.basecamphq.com) -- Online project management  
> [http://www.backpackit.com](http://www.backpackit.com) -- Personal information manager  
> [http://www.rubyonrails.com](http://www.rubyonrails.com) -- Web-application framework
