sybase-connector/doctrine-bundle

Symfony bundle providing Doctrine DBAL integration for SAP SQL Anywhere via PDO_ODBC + FreeTDS

dev-main 2026-06-03 15:08 UTC

Requires

• php: >=8.2
• doctrine/dbal: ^4.0
• symfony/config: ^6.4|^7.0
• symfony/dependency-injection: ^6.4|^7.0
• symfony/framework-bundle: ^6.4|^7.0

Requires (Dev)

• phpunit/phpunit: ^11.0
• symfony/dotenv: ^6.4|^7.0

Suggests

• doctrine/orm: To use Doctrine ORM entities with SQL Anywhere

MIT

README

Symfony bundle providing Doctrine DBAL integration for SAP SQL Anywhere via PDO_ODBC + FreeTDS.

How it works (end to end)

The problem

SAP SQL Anywhere is not MySQL or PostgreSQL — Doctrine doesn't support it natively. Key differences:

• SQL Anywhere uses SELECT TOP N START AT M instead of LIMIT/OFFSET
• Different types: BIT instead of BOOLEAN, MONEY, LONG VARCHAR, etc.
• Connection goes through ODBC via FreeTDS (a C library that speaks the TDS protocol)
• FreeTDS quirks: no server-side prepared statements, only one active cursor per connection

The connection stack

Your PHP code (Symfony / Doctrine)
        |
This bundle (SybaseDriver -> SybaseConnection -> SQLAnywherePlatform)
        |
PDO_ODBC (PHP extension)
        |
unixODBC (system ODBC driver manager)
        |
FreeTDS (ODBC driver speaking TDS 5.0 protocol)
        | TCP
SAP SQL Anywhere (port 2639)

Bundle components

File	Role
SybaseDriver	Creates the PDO_ODBC connection, builds the DSN, retries on transient network errors
SybaseConnection	PDO wrapper that auto-closes the previous cursor before each query (FreeTDS "Invalid cursor state" bug)
SQLAnywherePlatform	Translates Doctrine SQL to SQL Anywhere dialect (TOP/START AT, CURRENT DATE, BIT, ISNULL(), types...)
SQLAnywhereSchemaManager	Schema introspection via system views (sys.systable, sys.systabcol, etc.)
SybaseConnectorExtension	Auto-configures a Doctrine DBAL connection via PrependExtensionInterface

Installation

System prerequisites (FreeTDS + ODBC)

Option A: Docker (recommended) — everything included, nothing to install:

docker compose build
docker compose run --rm php composer install

Option B: macOS (Homebrew):

brew install freetds unixodbc

# Register the FreeTDS driver in ODBC
cat >> $(odbcinst -j | grep DRIVERS | awk '{print $2}') <<'EOF'
[FreeTDS]
Description=FreeTDS ODBC Driver
Driver=/opt/homebrew/lib/libtdsodbc.so
Setup=/opt/homebrew/lib/libtdsodbc.so
UsageCount=1
EOF

Option C: Linux (Debian/Ubuntu):

apt-get install unixodbc tdsodbc freetds-dev
# The driver registers itself automatically

Install the bundle

composer require sybase-connector/doctrine-bundle

Configure

.env:

SYBASE_DSN=odbc:Driver=FreeTDS;Server=your-server.example.com;Port=2639;Database=YOUR_DB;TDS_Version=5.0
SYBASE_USER=your_user
SYBASE_PASSWORD=your_password

config/packages/sybase_connector.yaml:

sybase_connector:
    dsn: '%env(SYBASE_DSN)%'
    user: '%env(SYBASE_USER)%'
    password: '%env(SYBASE_PASSWORD)%'

That's it. The bundle auto-configures a Doctrine DBAL connection named sqlanywhere (customizable via connection_name).

Usage

DBAL query (raw SQL):

// In a controller or service
public function __construct(
    #[Autowire(service: 'doctrine.dbal.sqlanywhere_connection')]
    private readonly Connection $connection,
) {}

public function searchCustomers(string $name): array
{
    return $this->connection->executeQuery(
        "SELECT TOP 50 CustomerID, FullName FROM customer WHERE FullName LIKE ?",
        ['%' . $name . '%']
    )->fetchAllAssociative();
}

With Doctrine ORM (define your own entities):

// config/packages/doctrine.yaml
doctrine:
    orm:
        entity_managers:
            sqlanywhere:
                connection: sqlanywhere
                mappings:
                    App:
                        type: attribute
                        dir: '%kernel.project_dir%/src/Entity/SQLAnywhere'
                        prefix: App\Entity\SQLAnywhere

Quick testing

Without Symfony (standalone script)

# Configure .env with your credentials, then:
php bin/test-query.php                    # Top 10 customers
php bin/test-query.php "%SMITH%"          # Search by name
php bin/test-query.php "SELECT TOP 5 * FROM your_table"  # Raw SQL

Demo page (browser)

# Start the built-in PHP server
docker compose run --rm -p 8080:8080 php php -S 0.0.0.0:8080 -t demo/public

# Or locally if FreeTDS is installed:
php -S localhost:8080 -t demo/public

Open http://localhost:8080 — type a name — results come from your SQL Anywhere database.

Automated tests

# Unit tests (no database needed)
./vendor/bin/phpunit --testsuite=unit

# Integration tests (requires .env configured)
./vendor/bin/phpunit --testsuite=integration