# Ironruby on Rails with SQL Azure

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ironruby-on-rails-with-sql-azure/194205>\
**Category:** IronRuby\
**Created:** [September 1, 2010, 3:29am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ironruby-on-rails-with-sql-azure/194205 "2010-09-01T03:29:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![writeameer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/9de053/32.png) [@writeameer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/writeameer)\
**Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 3:29am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ironruby-on-rails-with-sql-azure/194205/1 "2010-09-01T03:29:03Z")

</div>

Hello Everyone,

I’m trying to connect a vanilla rails application running on IronRuby to  
SQLAzure. The rails app is running on my laptop trying to connect to SQL  
Azure. When I point database.yml against my local instance, I’m able to  
communicate with SQL Server:

development:  
mode: ADONET  
adapter: sqlserver  
host: .  
database: mydb  
username: myuser  
password: mypassword

But when I point to SQL Azure:

development:  
mode: ADONET  
adapter: sqlserver  
host: [nrvk7uv6tl.database.windows.net](http://nrvk7uv6tl.database.windows.net)  
database: mydb  
username: myuser  
password: mypassword

I get the error listed below. Has anyone had luck with Ironruby and SQL  
Azure? I am able to connect to the SQL Azure instance using Enterprise  
manger to verify the database is up and the user credentials are  
correct. I can see from my netstat that myrails app is trying to connect  
to the correct IP at port 1433 and has an established connection.

I’m not sure how to debug this further and would really appreciate  
anyone pointing me in the right direction. Thanks for any help in  
advance.

Ameer

e[4;36;1mEXECUTE (387.0ms)e[0m e[0;1mUSE [cloudoman]e[0m  
/!\ FAILSAFE /!\ Wed Sep 01 10:40:33 +1000 2010  
Status: 500 Internal Server Error  
You have a nil object when you didn’t expect it!  
You might have expected an instance of ActiveRecord::Base.  
The error occurred while evaluating nil.[]  
C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-sqlserver-adapter-2.3.8/lib/active\_record/connection\_adapters/sqlserver\_adapter.rb:231:in  
`database_year' C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-sqlserver-adapter-2.3.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/sqlserver_adapter.rb:203:in `initialize’  
C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-sqlserver-adapter-2.3.8/lib/active\_record/connection\_adapters/sqlserver\_adapter.rb:28:in  
`sqlserver_connection' C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_pool.rb:223:in ` **send** ’  
C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.8/lib/active\_record/connection\_adapters/abstract/connection\_pool.rb:223:in  
`new_connection' C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_pool.rb:245:in `checkout\_new\_connection’  
C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.8/lib/active\_record/connection\_adapters/abstract/connection\_pool.rb:188:in  
`checkout' C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_pool.rb:184:in `loop’  
C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.8/lib/active\_record/connection\_adapters/abstract/connection\_pool.rb:184:in  
`checkout' C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ruby/1.8/monitor.rb:242:in `mon\_synchronize’  
C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.8/lib/active\_record/connection\_adapters/abstract/connection\_pool.rb:183:in  
`checkout' C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_pool.rb:98:in `connection’  
C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.8/lib/active\_record/connection\_adapters/abstract/connection\_pool.rb:326:in  
`retrieve_connection' C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_specification.rb:123:in `retrieve\_connection’  
C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.8/lib/active\_record/connection\_adapters/abstract/connection\_specification.rb:115:in  
`connection' C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.8/lib/active_record/query_cache.rb:9:in `cache’  
C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.8/lib/active\_record/query\_cache.rb:28:in  
`call' C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/activerecord-2.3.8/lib/active_record/connection_adapters/abstract/connection_pool.rb:361:in `call’  
C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.3.8/lib/action\_controller/string\_coercion.rb:25:in  
`call' C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/head.rb:9:in `call’  
C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/methodoverride.rb:24:in  
`call' C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.3.8/lib/action_controller/params_parser.rb:15:in `call’  
C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.3.8/lib/action\_controller/session/cookie\_store.rb:99:in  
`call' C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.3.8/lib/action_controller/failsafe.rb:26:in `call’  
C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/lock.rb:11:in  
`call' C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/lock.rb:11:in `synchronize’  
C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/lock.rb:11:in  
`call' C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.3.8/lib/action_controller/dispatcher.rb:114:in `call’  
C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.3.8/lib/action\_controller/reloader.rb:34:in  
`run' C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/actionpack-2.3.8/lib/action_controller/dispatcher.rb:108:in `call’  
C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-2.3.8/lib/rails/rack/static.rb:31:in  
`call' C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/urlmap.rb:45:in `call’  
C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/urlmap.rb:41:in  
`each' C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/urlmap.rb:41:in `call’  
C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-2.3.8/lib/rails/rack/log\_tailer.rb:17:in  
`call' C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/content_length.rb:13:in `call’  
C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ironruby/gems/1.8/gems/rack-1.1.0/lib/rack/handler/webrick.rb:48:in  
`service' C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ruby/1.8/webrick/httpserver.rb:104:in `service’  
C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ruby/1.8/webrick/httpserver.rb:65:in `run' C:/ironruby-1.1/lib/ruby/1.8/webrick/server.rb:173:in `start\_thread’  
IronRuby.Libraries:0:in `RubyThreadStart' IronRuby.Libraries:0:in `b\_\_0’  
mscorlib:0:in `ThreadStart_Context' mscorlib:0:in `Run’  
mscorlib:0:in `Run' mscorlib:0:in `ThreadStart’  
e[4;36;1mEXECUTE (394.0ms)e[0m e[0;1mUSE [cloudoman]e[0m

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![writeameer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/9de053/32.png) [@writeameer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/writeameer)\
**Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 4:01am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ironruby-on-rails-with-sql-azure/194205/2 "2010-09-01T04:01:52Z")

</div>

My guess is that SQL Azure doesn’t follow quite the same protocol as  
normal  
SQL Server. As I don’t have a SQL azure account, I can’t play around  
with it  
myself, but I’d suggest trying to get a simple command line version of  
IronRuby up and running and see if you can use the raw sqlserver adapter  
to  
connect to SQL azure at all?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![writeameer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/9de053/32.png) [@writeameer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/writeameer)\
**Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 3:44pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ironruby-on-rails-with-sql-azure/194205/3 "2010-09-01T15:44:16Z")

</div>

Hi there Orion,

Firstly, thanks very much for the prompt reply! I tried using IronRuby  
to query against my local sql server and SQL Azure. I’m a Ruby noob but  
I’ve listed below what I used.

I’m able to query against both SQL servers and obtain the time and  
servername using Transact-SQL. As mentioned earlier, however, I was  
unable to use rails to connect to SQL Azure.

The SQL Azure credential I’ve listed below is real and can be used for  
testing.

Any other ideas?

## test script:

require ‘mscorlib’  
require ‘System.Data, Version=2.0.0.0, Culture=neutral,  
PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089’

include System::Data::SqlClient

#connection =  
SqlConnection.new(‘Server=.;Database=dev;Uid=myuser;Pwd=MyP@ssw0rd’)  
connection =  
SqlConnection.new(‘[Server=nrvk7uv6tl.database.windows.net](http://Server=nrvk7uv6tl.database.windows.net);Database=cloudoman;Uid=myuser;Pwd=MyP@ssw0rd’)  
connection.open

command = SqlCommand.new(“SELECT getdate() as my\_date, @@SERVERNAME AS  
my\_name”,connection)

my\_reader = command.execute\_reader()  
my\_reader.each do |x|  
puts “Server Name: #{x[‘my\_name’].to\_s}”  
puts “Time: #{x[‘my\_date’].to\_s}”  
end

my\_reader.close  
connection.close

Orion E. wrote:

> My guess is that SQL Azure doesn’t follow quite the same protocol as  
> normal  
> SQL Server. As I don’t have a SQL azure account, I can’t play around  
> with it  
> myself, but I’d suggest trying to get a simple command line version of  
> IronRuby up and running and see if you can use the raw sqlserver adapter  
> to  
> connect to SQL azure at all?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![writeameer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/9de053/32.png) [@writeameer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/writeameer)\
**Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 1:54pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ironruby-on-rails-with-sql-azure/194205/4 "2010-09-02T13:54:19Z")

</div>

Got it. There’s a small issue with sqlserver\_adapter.rb and the way  
Micrsoft Azure advertises it’s version.

There is a database\_year function that tries to determine the version of  
SQL Server from the output of the following query:

“SELECT @@version”

For Non Azure SQL Server databases, the output is similar to the  
following:

“Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (SP1) - 10.0.2531.0 (Intel X86) …”

the database\_year funtion grabs the SQL Server version from the 4 digits  
following the word “Microsoft SQL Server”:

```
  DATABASE_VERSION_REGEXP = /Microsoft SQL Server\s+(\d{4})/

  def database_year
    DATABASE_VERSION_REGEXP.match(database_version)[1].to_i
  end

```

In Azure, however, the query returns a different string:

“Microsoft SQL Azure (RTM) - 10.25.9386.0 …”

That database\_year function, as a result returns a nil string and  
breaks. As a test, I just changed the function to:

```
  def database_year
    2008
  end

```

and I was able to connect my rails application to SQL Azure. There just  
needs to be a smarter way to ascertain the SQL Server version. Possible  
match up the 10.XX version number with the SQL Server 2005/2008 etc  
versions.

Thanks very much for the help.

Ameer

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![writeameer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/9de053/32.png) [@writeameer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/writeameer)\
**Post date:** [September 1, 2010, 5:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ironruby-on-rails-with-sql-azure/194205/5 "2010-09-01T17:09:15Z")

</div>

I was using this tutorial to get ironruby on rails running:

[http://ironruby.net/documentation/rails](http://ironruby.net/documentation/rails)

which uses the activerecord-sqlserver-adapter. I’m running rails 2.3.8.

Ameer.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![writeameer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/9de053/32.png) [@writeameer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/writeameer)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2010, 4:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ironruby-on-rails-with-sql-azure/194205/6 "2010-09-08T16:17:12Z")

</div>

Summarized my learnings here:

[http://www.cloudartisan.com/2010/09/ironruby-on-rails-on-azure-part-2-of-3-–-connecting-your-rails-app-to-sqlazure/](http://www.cloudartisan.com/2010/09/ironruby-on-rails-on-azure-part-2-of-3-%E2%80%93-connecting-your-rails-app-to-sqlazure/)

Ameer D.  
[twitter.com/writeameer](http://twitter.com/writeameer)

Will G. wrote:

> Should probably change the RegExp to match after the dash (10.x.x.x),  
> and  
> use that as the version, rather than, e.g., 2008, 2005, 2000, etc.
> 
> –  
> Will G.  
> [http://hotgazpacho.org/](http://hotgazpacho.org/)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![writeameer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/9de053/32.png) [@writeameer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/writeameer)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2011, 2:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ironruby-on-rails-with-sql-azure/194205/7 "2011-04-02T02:58:47Z")

</div>

The Latest v3 SQL Server Adapter now supports Azure  
[http://groups.google.com/group/rails-sqlserver-adapter/browse\_thread/thread/50dc2108c4fda584?hl=en](http://groups.google.com/group/rails-sqlserver-adapter/browse_thread/thread/50dc2108c4fda584?hl=en)

You must use the latest DBLIB/TinyTDS connection mode which also means  
you must use the latest FreeTDS compiled with OpenSSL. All the details  
are here.

> **[Home](https://github.com/rails-sqlserver/activerecord-sqlserver-adapter/wiki/)**
>
> SQL Server Adapter For Rails. Contribute to rails-sqlserver/activerecord-sqlserver-adapter development by creating an account on GitHub.

> **[Home](https://github.com/rails-sqlserver/activerecord-sqlserver-adapter/wiki/)**
>
> SQL Server Adapter For Rails. Contribute to rails-sqlserver/activerecord-sqlserver-adapter development by creating an account on GitHub.

I realize some of this may be only informative for IronRuby in an  
indirect way. It is also worth pointing out that FreeTDS/TinyTDS will  
soon be available as precompiled libs for Windows with the  
RailsInstaller project too.

- HTH, Ken

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![writeameer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/9de053/32.png) [@writeameer](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/writeameer)\
**Post date:** [September 2, 2010, 6:11pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ironruby-on-rails-with-sql-azure/194205/8 "2010-09-02T18:11:02Z")

</div>

Should probably change the RegExp to match after the dash (10.x.x.x),  
and  
use that as the version, rather than, e.g., 2008, 2005, 2000, etc.

–  
Will G.  
[http://hotgazpacho.org/](http://hotgazpacho.org/)