DevOps, CI/CD and Automation

For various obscure reasons, I want to open an ODBC connection to an Oracle database without using the tnsnames.ora file to translate the service name. In other words, instead of something like:

"UID=scott;PWD=tiger;DBQ=mydb;"

I want to use this:

"UID=scott;PWD=tiger;DBQ=(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS=...);"

The string I want to use for the DBQ parameter is the right hand side of what would appear in the tnsnames.ora file for mydb. I can log in to SQL*Plus using this syntax. I can also use this syntax when connecting via the Microsoft ODBC Driver for Oracle (using SERVER= instead of DBQ=). However, when I use the Oracle ODBC Driver (8.1.7), it fails with:

ORA12154: TNS Could not resolve service name

I tried testing this connection string through the ODBC administrator (instead of through VB) but I found that the text box where you enter the service name was too small for the full connection string.

Does the Oracle ODBC Driver force the use of TNSNames translation, or is there some other syntax to use?

Thanks,

John H.