I just spent a couple of hours trying to track down the Exception "Could not find driver". This was despite having ODBC and PDO_ODBC installed, and all of the configuration seemed to be correct.

Turned out the problem was that I used ODBC in upper-case in the dsn. As soon as I changed the dns to "odbc:database" it worked.

As this code used to work a few months ago, this sudden case-sensitivity threw me for a loop. So in case you get this error, check the casing first.

If you want to avoid installing DB2 Connect and/or PECL modules ibm_db2 and PDO_IBM, you can also use IBM DB2 databases trough unixODBC.

If you have DB2 database on a i server you need to install IBM iAccess (http://www.ibm.com/systems/i/software/access/linux/index.html) and unixODBC. Just install the libraries (rpm) and modify configurations in /etc/odbcinst.ini (sample configuration in /opt/ibm/iSeriesAccess/unixodbcregistration) and /etc/odbc.ini.

To my experience this is much easier way than installing DB2 Connect.

Using SQL 2005, PDO_ODBC and datetime fields is a royal pain.  MSDN documentation on CAST CONVERT shows that there is supposed to be an implicit convert between character types and datetime types.  That's true... until you put it in a stored procedure and use variable declarations.

For instance this fails:

declare @date varchar;
SET @date = '20080101';
SELECT cast(@date AS datetime) AS poo

While this succeeds:
declare @date varchar(19);
SET @date = '20080101';
SELECT cast(@date AS datetime) AS poo

The PDO Driver appears to attempt an implicit conversion and so it fails whenever you try to insert data into datetime column types.

So to workaround this nuance in SQL, declare a character column type with explicit width.  Then your implicit type conversion will work.

Using SQL Server Native Client 11.0 on Linux as a PDO_ODBC driver:

Download the SQL Server Native Client 11.0 on Linux ODBC Driver:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=28160

Configuration ODBC:

/usr/local/etc/odbcsys.ini
--
[SQL Server Native Client 11.0]
Description = Microsoft SQL Server ODBC Driver V1.0 for Linux
Driver = /opt/microsoft/sqlncli/lib64/libsqlncli-11.0.so.1720.0
UsageCount = 1

/usr/local/etc/odbc.ini
--
[MSSQLServer]
Driver = SQL Server Native Client 11.0
Description = Sample Database
Trace = Yes
Server = 
Port = 1433
Database = 

Test the connection:
mssqltest.php
--
<?php
    putenv('ODBCSYSINI=/usr/local/etc');
    putenv('ODBCINI=/usr/local/etc/odbc.ini');
    $username = "";
    $password = "";
    try {
      $dbh = new PDO("odbc:MSSQLServer",
                    "$username",
                    "$password"
                   );
    } catch (PDOException $exception) {
      echo $exception->getMessage();
      exit;
    }
    echo var_dump($dbh);
    unset($dbh);
?>

MSSQL - PHP on Apache - Linux Redhat

When using php 5.2.10 please beaware of this error:

http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=42068

Standard odbc_connect will not work, you must use pdo_odbc

Connecting to MSSQL using pdo odbc - walkthrough.. 

1. Download and configure FreeTDS with-unixodbc

./configure --prefix=/opt/SYSfreetds --with-unixodbc

make;make test; make install

2. install php-odbc and unixODBC

         php-odbc-5.2.10-1.x86_64.rpm
         unixODBC.x86_64.x86x64

3. Setup ODBC links

a)
Create a tds.driver file with the following contents

  [FreeTDS]
  Description     = v0.63 with protocol v8.0
  Driver          = /opt/SYSfreetds/lib/libtdsodbc.so

Register the ODBC driver - the tds.driver file

  odbcinst -i -d -f tds.driver

b)
Creating a tds.datasource file - ODBC Data Source with contents:

  [SOURCENAME]
  Driver=FreeTDS
  Description=Test MS SQL Database with FreeTDS
  Trace=No
  Server=BobTheServer
  Port=1433
  TDS Version=8.0
  Database=youDBname

Register the ODBC data source

  odbcinst -i -s -f tds.datasource

Beware that the odbc.ini file will be installed in the current users home directory. This may need to be used if you are using a webserver as the apache home directory could be different.

Ensure .odbc.ini is in apaches home directory, possibly "/var/www"

4. Test the ODBC link on the command line

  isql -v SOURCENAME 'username' 'password'

  +---------------------------------------+
  | Connected!                            |
  |                                       |
  | sql-statement                         |
  | help [tablename]                      |
  | quit                                  |
  |                                       |
  +---------------------------------------+
 SQL>

5. Edit /etc/php.ini

  Make sure the following is set:
     mssql.secure_connection = On
 

6. Restart apache gracefully

7. PHP to run:

  <?
  $dbh= new PDO('odbc:SOURCENAME', 'username', 'password');
  $stmt = $dbh->prepare("$query");
  $stmt->execute();
  while ($row = $stmt->fetch()) {
      print_r($row);
  }
  unset($dbh); unset($stmt);
  ?>

Trouble-shooting:

Please try strace/ truss if you encounter issues. It could be you are referencing wrong libraries somewhere.

Ensure you have restarted apache once the odbc files are in place