R help - May 2009 - RODBC package: how to check whether connection is open

What is the recommended way of checking whether an RODBC connection is open?

Since odbcValidChannel is not exported from namespace RODBC, I suppose I
shouldn't be using it.

This is the best I could come up with, but it seems a bit 'dirty' to be
using a tryCatch for something like this:

  odbcOpenp <- function(conn)
     tryCatch({odbcGetInfo(conn);TRUE},error=function(...)FALSE)

Suggestions?

          -s

	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]

Stavros Macrakis-2 wrote:
> 
> What is the recommended way of checking whether an RODBC connection is
> open?
> 
> Since odbcValidChannel is not exported from namespace RODBC, I suppose I
> shouldn't be using it.
> 
> This is the best I could come up with, but it seems a bit 'dirty'
to be
> using a tryCatch for something like this:
> 
>   odbcOpenp <- function(conn)
>      tryCatch({odbcGetInfo(conn);TRUE},error=function(...)FALSE)
> 
Directly after an open, testing for class of the channel should work. As I
understand ODDBC, there is no way of testing if the channel "is still
open"
other than doing a test-read, because the other side could be connected
transatlantic. I remember an IBM memo giving an example that sends a
passthrough SQL query to the remote site.


Dieter


library(RODBC)
channel = odbcConnectAccess("db.mdb")
str(channel)
class(channel)
channel = odbcClose(channel)
str(channel) # Still of class RODBC, evidently


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