Getting started with SQL Anywhere Server

Getting started

SQL Anywhere provides three methods to administer your system: Sybase Central, Interactive SQL, and command-line utilities. The choice of which tool to use is your preference. The majority of tasks, such as connecting to a database, are supported by all three methods.

The tutorials and introductory materials listed in this section use all three methods to create and manage SQL Anywhere databases.

For an overview of Sybase Central and Interactive SQL, see Design and management tools.

Starting the database server

Tutorial: Connecting to the sample database

This tutorial walks you through starting a database server, displaying the database server messages window, and stopping the database server.

Additional information For a complete list of server options, see SQL Anywhere database server syntax.
Or, to see a list of server options, run the following command:
dbeng12 -?
Further reading For more information about how SQL Anywhere names its servers and databases, see Database server and database naming.

Connecting to a database

SQL Anywhere database connections

This section describes how to create an ODBC data source and how to use it to connect to a database using Sybase Central.

Further reading For more examples of connecting to the SQL Anywhere sample database, connecting to an embedded database, and connecting across a network, see SQL Anywhere database connections.

Creating a database

Tutorial: Creating a SQL Anywhere database

This tutorial describes how to use Sybase Central to:
- Create a database file
- Connect to your database
- Create a table
- Create relationships between tables

Managing databases

Sybase Central

This section introduces Sybase Central and describes how to use it to:
- Connect to databases. See Starting Sybase Central (Windows).
- Create connection profiles. See Creating connection profiles (Sybase Central).
- Search a database. See Searching databases in Sybase Central.
- View entity-relationship diagrams. See Viewing entity-relationship diagrams from the SQL Anywhere 12 plug-in.
- Monitor database health and statistics. See Database health and statistics.

Using SQL statements

Interactive SQL

This section familiarizes you with Interactive SQL and provides steps to:
- Execute multiple statements. See Executing multiple SQL statements in Interactive SQL.
- Cancel an Interactive SQL statement. See Statement canceling in Interactive SQL.
- Look up tables, columns, and procedures. See Looking up tables, columns, and procedures in Interactive SQL.
- Print SQL statements. See Printing SQL statements, execution plans, and result sets in Interactive SQL.
- Recall and log statements. See Recalling statements in Interactive SQL and Statement logging in Interactive SQL.
- Create and run script files. See Run SQL script files in Interactive SQL.

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