Connection String Parser & Converter

Paste any database connection string — SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, or SQLite — to see every field it carries and convert it between ADO.NET, JDBC, URL-style, and libpq formats. Everything runs locally in your browser: your string is never uploaded, and this page makes no network requests with your input.

How the parser works

The converter auto-detects the format from the string itself: a jdbc: prefix means JDBC, a postgres:// or mysql:// scheme means a URL-style string, semicolon-separated key=value pairs mean ADO.NET, space-separated pairs mean libpq, user/pass@host:port/service means Oracle EZConnect, and an absolute .db/.sqlite path (or file:// URI) means SQLite. It applies the same parsing rules the Jam SQL Studio desktop app uses to prefill its New Connection dialog from a pasted string — including quoted values, escaped semicolons, percent-encoded passwords, named instances, and Integrated Security variants.

Passwords are masked by default in both the parsed table and the converted output; tick Reveal passwords to copy a converted string with the real credential in place.

The four connection string formats, explained

ADO.NET — semicolon-separated key=value

The .NET family (SqlClient, Npgsql, MySql.Data, ODP.NET) uses Key=Value; pairs. For SQL Server, Server= and Data Source= are aliases, as are Database= and Initial Catalog=; a port rides along after a comma, and Integrated Security=SSPI replaces the user/password pair with Windows authentication. Values containing semicolons must be quoted.

Server=tcp:db.example.com,1433;Initial Catalog=app;User Id=app_user;Password=example;Encrypt=True;TrustServerCertificate=True

Host=db.example.com;Port=5432;Database=app;Username=app_user;Password=example;SSL Mode=Require

JDBC — jdbc:driver:// URLs

Java drivers name themselves in the prefix: jdbc:sqlserver://, jdbc:postgresql://, jdbc:mysql://, jdbc:oracle:thin:. The property separator differs by driver — SQL Server chains ;prop=value pairs after the host, while PostgreSQL and MySQL use URL query syntax with ? and &. SQL Server's database key is databaseName, not database.

jdbc:sqlserver://db.example.com:1433;databaseName=app;user=app_user;password=example;encrypt=true

jdbc:postgresql://db.example.com:5432/app?user=app_user&password=example&sslmode=require

URL-style — engine://user:pass@host:port/db

The format most ORMs, cloud providers, and DATABASE_URL environment variables use. The classic failure: special characters in the password. A password like p@ss must be percent-encoded as p%40ss, or everything after the first @ is read as the host name. There is no standard URL scheme for SQL Server or Oracle — this format covers PostgreSQL, MySQL, and MariaDB.

postgresql://app_user:[email protected]:5432/app?sslmode=require

mysql://app_user:[email protected]:3306/app

libpq — space-separated key=value (PostgreSQL)

PostgreSQL's native keyword/value format, accepted by psql and everything built on libpq. Values containing spaces are wrapped in single quotes (password='p a ss'), and an embedded quote is escaped with a backslash. Common keys: host, port, dbname, user, password, sslmode.

host=db.example.com port=5432 dbname=app user=app_user password=example sslmode=require

Common connection string gotchas

• Passwords containing ; or @ — they break naive parsing. Quote the value in ADO.NET (Password="p;w"), percent-encode it in URLs (@ → %40), and brace it in JDBC SQL Server properties (password={p;w}).
• Integrated Security=SSPI vs true — both mean Windows authentication in ADO.NET, and Trusted_Connection=yes is the ODBC-heritage spelling of the same thing. When it's present, user and password are ignored.
• Default ports — SQL Server 1433, PostgreSQL 5432, MySQL/MariaDB 3306, Oracle 1521. A missing port silently means the default, which bites when the server actually listens elsewhere.
• Encrypt=True;TrustServerCertificate=True — the standard pair for local SQL Server dev with a self-signed certificate. Recent drivers (Microsoft.Data.SqlClient 4+, ODBC 18) encrypt by default, so old connection strings suddenly fail with certificate-chain errors until you add the trust flag (or install a real certificate).
• PostgreSQL sslmode values — disable, allow, prefer, require, verify-ca, verify-full. Note that require encrypts the connection but does not verify the server's identity; use verify-full for that.
• Named instances and SIDs — a SQL Server named instance (host\SQLEXPRESS) carries no port and resolves via the SQL Browser service; in JDBC it becomes an instanceName property. Oracle's old host:port:SID form and the newer host:port/service EZConnect form are not interchangeable.

Frequently asked questions

How do I convert a JDBC connection string to ADO.NET?

Paste the JDBC URL — for example jdbc:sqlserver://db.example.com:1433;databaseName=app;user=app_user;password=example — into the converter above. It detects the driver from the jdbc: prefix, extracts the host, port, database, credentials, and properties such as encrypt, and re-emits them with ADO.NET keys: Server=db.example.com,1433;Database=app;User Id=app_user;Password=example;Encrypt=True. The mappings to watch: databaseName becomes Database, encrypt becomes Encrypt, and integratedSecurity=true becomes Integrated Security=SSPI.

Is it safe to paste a connection string with a real password?

This tool runs entirely in your browser: the page makes no network requests with your input, and nothing you paste is stored, logged, or sent anywhere. Even so, the safest habit is to treat any credential that has ever been pasted into any website, chat, or ticket as potentially exposed — rotate passwords you have shared with tools you do not control.

What is the default port for SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Oracle?

SQL Server listens on port 1433, PostgreSQL on 5432, MySQL and MariaDB on 3306, and Oracle on 1521. When a connection string omits the port, drivers fall back to these defaults — the parser above marks an assumed port with (default). SQLite has no port at all: the connection string is just a file path.

How do I escape special characters in a connection string password?

It depends on the format. In ADO.NET, wrap the value in double quotes when it contains a semicolon: Password="p;w". In URL-style strings, percent-encode reserved characters: @ becomes %40, : becomes %3A, and / becomes %2F. In libpq strings, wrap values containing spaces in single quotes (password='p a ss') and escape an embedded quote with a backslash. In JDBC SQL Server URLs, wrap property values containing semicolons in braces: password={p;w}.

What is Integrated Security?

Integrated Security (also written Trusted_Connection) is SQL Server's Windows authentication mode: instead of sending a user name and password, the driver authenticates as the Windows account running the process via Kerberos or NTLM. Integrated Security=SSPI and Integrated Security=true mean the same thing in ADO.NET; the JDBC equivalent is integratedSecurity=true, which also requires the driver's native authentication library on the client.

Why is there no URL format for SQL Server?

No standard mssql:// or sqlserver:// URL scheme exists — Microsoft's drivers define ADO.NET key=value strings and the jdbc:sqlserver:// form instead. Some libraries accept ad-hoc mssql:// URLs, but their parsing rules differ from one another, so this converter emits ADO.NET and JDBC for SQL Server and omits the URL form.

Paste it once, connect forever

Jam SQL Studio's New Connection dialog accepts a pasted connection string in any of these formats — it detects the engine and prefills the whole form using the same parser as this page. A free desktop SQL client for SQL Server, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, and SQLite.

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