WebObjects and SQL Server 7

The workaround described in this article has been included in WebObjects 4.0.1 Patch 2 and subsequent patches. Please see the WebObjects Current Patch List, article 70037, for information on the most current patches for WebObjects and Enterprise Objects Framework. This obsolete article is provided here as a convenience to our customers who have not yet upgraded to the most current patch level.
Q: I get a crash when I try to use the WebObjects ODBC adaptor to connect to Microsoft SQL Server 7. How can I fix this?

A: This is a known issue with some versions of WebObjects and SQL Server 7. WebObjects 3.5.1 users can avoid this by installing EOF 2.2 User Patch 2. An updated version of the WebObjects 4 ODBC adaptor for Windows NT is now available which will work with Microsoft SQL Server 7. This is an unsupported product and users should install it at their own risk. Apple will not guarantee or provide support for this package.

To install the modified ODBC adaptor on WebObjects 4:

1. Download the adaptor package from Apple's FTP server.

2. Uncompress the ODBCEOAdaptorWO401.tar.gz file. This file contains both the source code and a built version of the ODBC adaptor for WebObjects 4.

3. Copy the file ODBCEOAdaptor.dll from inside the ODBCEOAdaptor.framework directory to <$NEXT_ROOT>/Library/Executables. Be sure to back up the original file first.

4. Copy the ODBCEOAdaptor.framework to <$NEXT_ROOT>/Library/Frameworks. Be sure to back up the original .framework directory first.

You must make clean and recompile existing WebObjects projects against the new frameworks in order to connect to SQL Server 7 databases. This version of the adaptor also corrects issues with case-insensitive database comparisons and the naming of reverse engineered tables. However, Apple recommends this patch only for customers who need SQL Server 7 connectivity. This patch was tested with version 3.510.3711.0 of the ODBC core components.

Published Date: Feb 19, 2012