The driver uses a DSN mechanism that allows certain attributes to be set at connection time.
The DSN attribute syntax is the same as the Open Source DBD::Sybase driver. Therefore, you need not change Perl scripts or maintain different versions for DBD::Sybase versus DBD::SybaseASE. However, DBD::SybaseASE does not support some attributes that are considered obsolete. See Currently unsupported DSN syntax.
The dbi:SybaseASE: section obtains the package name of the driver so it can be loaded in the following syntax.
DBI->connect("dbi:SybaseASE:attr=value;attr=value", $user_id, $password, %attrib);
When the DSN is passed into the driver, the system removes this part and the remaining string holds the key and value pairs to be dissected.
The %attrib argument is an optional, comma-separated chain of key-value pairs that set options at connection time. They are passed into the driver and handled during a connect() call. For example:
DBI->connect("dbi:SybaseASE:server=mumbles; user, password, PrintError => 1, AutoCommit = 0);