← Databases

SQL Server and Azure SQL

The driver speaks TDS itself (a patched tiberius), so there is nothing to install or download. It is written for SQL Server 2017 (14.0) and later, and for Azure SQL (not tested against the service: see the end of this page).

Connect

In a URL, database or databaseName names the database, and encrypt and trustServerCertificate are read as the JDBC and ADO.NET strings read them (unless sslmode is also given).

Named instances (host\SQLEXPRESS) are not looked up through the SQL Server Browser: give the instance's port. A pasted string with an instance and no port says so.

TLS: disable turns encryption off. prefer (the default) encrypts and does not check the certificate (servers often have a self-signed one), and falls back to plain if the server has no encryption. require encrypts without checking. verify-ca and verify-full both check the chain and the host name, because the TLS library always checks the name; point sslrootcert at your CA's file, or the system's trusted certificates are used.

Signing in:

• SQL Server login: user and password.
• Windows sign-in (Integrated Security=SSPI in a pasted string): only when PlatypusDB runs on Windows; elsewhere it is an error.
• Microsoft Entra ID: a token made by the az tool, which must be installed and signed in. This is how Azure SQL's Entra sign-in is reached.

Azure SQL: the gateway may send the client to the database's own node; the app follows one such redirection, except through an SSH tunnel, which leads to one address only.

Privileges

Browsing needs what the login can see. The administration tabs read:

• Sessions and Locks: sys.dm_exec_sessions, dm_exec_requests, dm_exec_connections and dm_tran_locks. To see what other logins do, the login needs VIEW SERVER STATE.
• Costliest statements: sys.dm_exec_query_stats, the plan cache.
• Tables and indexes: sys.tables, dm_db_partition_stats, dm_db_index_usage_stats and sys.stats.
• Parameters: sys.configurations; Open in the editor writes a sp_configure statement.
• Dashboard: performance counters, sys.databases and sys.master_files sizes, and availability groups where there are any; a figure the login cannot read shows "—".
• Users and roles: the server's logins, roles and grants.
• Maintenance: UPDATE STATISTICS, ALTER INDEX ALL … REBUILD and DBCC CHECKTABLE.

What works

• Data editing in the grid, by primary key (or a unique key on non-null columns, or a virtual key).
• Manual commit and rollback; cancelling a running statement (a TDS attention) keeps the session, its transaction and its temporary tables.
• Several result sets from one batch, and PRINT messages.
• Several databases per connection: a connection that names its database shows only that one; Show all databases lists the rest.
• Explain shows the estimated plan (SHOWPLAN). Explain analyze is refused.
• End session is KILL. Cancelling another session's statement is not possible on SQL Server, so the tab offers only to end the session.
• Imports use SQL Server's bulk copy (OPENJSON inserts for tables with money, xml or legacy columns).
• Schema tools (table editor, ER diagram, comparison), also for computed and collated columns, rich indexes and temporal tables. XML and spatial indexes are left out of a comparison.
• Terminal mode runs sqlcmd, if it is on the PATH.

Agents

On SQL Server the statement check alone stops writes for read-only agents (no server-side read-only session); an agent's transaction is rolled back. server_activity and top_queries work. See Agents and the CLI.

Known limits

• Older than 2017: the app connects and warns that some features may not work.
• No Explain analyze and no named-instance lookup.

Tested on

The conformance suite runs on SQL Server 2017 and 2022 (containers), and the generic ODBC driver is tried against the same 2022 container. Azure SQL is not tested: its redirection, Entra sign-in and encryption rules are in the code but have not been run against the service.

See also: Connecting, Troubleshooting.