How do I install RODBC on Mac with unixodbc and freetds? - macos

Question

After a fairly extensive search, I noticed that a number of people are having a hard time finding a start-to-finish guide that answers this question. (At least one question notes that a solution exists, but the proposed solution does not get around the fact that, by default, RODBC attempts to compile against iODBC, which is not included with Yosemite.) I just went through this process, so I thought I would document it here in the hope that it will benefit others. I am connecting to a SQL Server database.

Answer 1

Using Homebrew as my OS X package manager, I can install RODBC with the following steps (assuming I have already installed R).
Install unixodbc:
$ brew install unixodbc
Install freetds (replacing /usr/local/Cellar/unixodbc/2.3.2_1 with your unixodbc directory, if necessary):
$ brew install --with-tdsver=8.0 --with-msdblib --with-unixodbc=/usr/local/Cellar/unixodbc/2.3.2_1 freetds
Configure your freetds installation (the following is a minimal configuration file):
freetds.conf
# server specific section
[global]
; tds version = 8.0
; dump file = /tmp/freetds.log
; debug flags = 0xffff
; timeout = 10
; connect timeout = 10
text size = 64512
[TESTSQL]
# insert the actual host below
host = <xxx.xx.x.xx>
port = 1433
tds version = 8.0
Test the freetds config:
$ tsql -H `<xxx.xx.x.xx>` -p 1433 -U `<username>` -P `<password>`
locale is "en_US.UTF-8"
locale charset is "UTF-8"
using default charset "UTF-8"
1> exit
Configure your unixodbc installation (the following is a minimal configuration file):
$ sudo vim /usr/local/Cellar/unixodbc/2.3.2_1/etc/odbcinst.ini
odbcinst.ini
[MSSQL]
Description = Microsoft SQL Server driver
Driver = /usr/local/Cellar/freetds/0.95.18/lib/libtdsodbc.so
(and another minimal installation file):
$ sudo vim /usr/local/Cellar/unixodbc/2.3.2_1/etc/odbc.ini
odbc.ini
[ODBC Data Sources]
TESTSQL = Test database
[TESTSQL]
Driver = MSSQL
Servername = TESTSQL
Port = 1433
Database = TMSEPRD
TDS_Version = 8.0
Test the new configuration with isql:
$ isql TESTSQL `<username>` `<password>`
+---------------------------------------+
| Connected! |
| |
| sql-statement |
| help [tablename] |
| quit |
| |
+---------------------------------------+
SQL> quit
Create a symbolic link to the files in your home directory:
$ ln -vs /usr/local/Cellar/freetds/0.95.18/etc/freetds.conf ~/.freetds.conf
$ ln -vs /usr/local/Cellar/unixodbc/2.3.2_1/etc/odbc.ini ~/.odbc.ini
$ ln -vs /usr/local/Cellar/unixodbc/2.3.2_1/etc/odbcinst.ini ~/.odbcinst.ini
Find and modify your RProfile file by appending the following line(s) of code to the file (replacing /usr/local/include with the include directory that contains your sql.h and sqlext.h files; the second line may be unnecessary if the directory does not exist):
$ vim /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.2/Resources/library/base/R/Rprofile
Sys.setenv(ODBC_INCLUDE="/usr/local/include")
Sys.setenv(ODBC_LIBS="/usr/local/lib")
Now download the RODBC package source (which you an download here) to your Downloads folder.
Open a new R console session and install the package (replacing RODBC_1.3-12.tar.gz with the name of your package source):
install.packages("~/Downloads/RODBC_1.3-12.tar.gz", repos=NULL, type="source")
The package should now work:
> library(RODBC)
> myconn <- odbcConnect("TESTSQL", uid="<userid>", pwd="<password>")
Thanks to Jared Folkins and Gabi Huiber for help with figuring out what directories R looks in by default for the requisite files for RODBC.