Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

Open Database Connectivity

 
Computer Desktop Encyclopedia: ODBC
Home > Library > Technology > Computer Encyclopedia

(Open DataBase Connectivity) A database programming interface from Microsoft that provides a common language for Windows applications to access databases on a network. ODBC is made up of the function calls programmers write into their applications and the ODBC drivers themselves.

For client/server database systems such as Oracle and SQL Server, the ODBC driver provides links to their database engines to access the database. For desktop database systems such as Access and FoxPro, the ODBC drivers actually manipulate the data. ODBC supports SQL and non-SQL databases. Although the application always uses SQL to communicate with ODBC, ODBC will communicate with non-SQL databases in its native language. See JDBC.

ODBC Interfaces
These are the various ways applications access data sources using ODBC and other Microsoft interfaces.

Download Computer Desktop Encyclopedia to your iPhone/iTouch

Search unanswered questions...

Enter a question here...
Search: All sources Community Q&A Reference topics

Wikipedia: Open Database Connectivity
Top
Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
Question book-new.svg
 This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2009)

In computing, Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) provides a standard software API method for using database management systems (DBMS). The designers of ODBC aimed to make it independent of programming languages, database systems, and operating systems.

Contents

History

ODBC uses as its basis the various Call Level Interface (CLI) specifications from the SQL Access Group, X/Open (now part of The Open Group), and the ISO/IEC. Microsoft, in partnership with Simba Technologies, created ODBC by adapting the SQL Access Group CLI. It released ODBC 1.0 in September 1992.[1] After ODBC 2.0, Microsoft decided to align ODBC 3.0 with the CLI specification making its way through X/Open and ISO. In 1995, SQL/CLI became part of the international SQL standard.[2]

Version history:[3]

  • 1.0: released in September 1992[4]
  • 2.0: ca 1994
  • 2.5
  • 3.0: ca 1995
  • 3.5: ca 1997

Bridging configurations

JDBC-ODBC bridges

A JDBC-ODBC bridge consists of a JDBC driver which employs an ODBC driver to connect to a target database. This driver translates JDBC method calls into ODBC function calls. Programmers usually use such a bridge when a particular database lacks a JDBC driver. Sun Microsystems included one such bridge in the JVM, but viewed it as a stop-gap measure while few JDBC drivers existed. Sun never intended its bridge for production environments, and generally recommends against its use. As of 2008 independent data-access vendors deliver JDBC-ODBC bridges which support current standards for both mechanisms, and which far outperform the JVM built-in.[citation needed]

ODBC-JDBC bridges

An ODBC-JDBC bridge consists of an ODBC driver which uses the services of a JDBC driver to connect to a database. This driver translates ODBC function-calls into JDBC method-calls. Programmers usually use such a bridge when they lack an ODBC driver for a particular database but have access to a JDBC driver.

OLE DB

Microsoft provides an OLE DB-ODBC bridge for simplifying development in COM aware languages (i.e. Visual Basic). This bridge forms part of the MDAC system component bundle, together with other database drivers.

Implementations

ODBC implementations run on many operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Unix, Linux, OS/2, OS/400, IBM i5/OS, and Mac OS X. Hundreds of ODBC drivers exist, including drivers for Oracle, DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase, Pervasive SQL, IBM Lotus Domino, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and desktop database products such as FileMaker, and Microsoft Access.

Microsoft ODBC

Microsoft released the first ODBC product as a set of DLLs for Microsoft Windows. As of 2006, Microsoft ships its own ODBC with every supported version of Windows: compare Microsoft Data Access Components.

iODBC

Main article: iODBC

iODBC (Independent Open DataBase Connectivity) offers an open source, platform-independent implementation of both the ODBC and X/Open specifications, generally used on platforms other than Microsoft Windows. OpenLink Software maintains and supports the iODBC project and distributes its software under the LGPL and/or BSD License. Apple chose to bundle iODBC into Mac OS X and Darwin, starting with Darwin 6.0 and Mac OS X v10.2. Programmers have ported iODBC to several other operating systems and hardware platforms, including Mac OS 9, Linux (x86, x86-64, IA-64, Alpha, MIPS, and ARM), Solaris (SPARC and x86), AIX, HP-UX (PA-RISC and Itanium), Compaq Tru64, Digital UNIX, Dynix, Generic UNIX 5.4, FreeBSD, DG-UX, and OpenVMS.

IBM i5/OS

Main article: IBM i5/OS

In the IBM i5/OS (formerly OS/400), IBM's DB2 implementation supports ODBC. The vendor provides ODBC Drivers for Windows and JDBC as part of the Server and Client Packages.

UnixODBC

Main article: unixODBC

The unixODBC project — headed, maintained and supported by Easysoft Director Nick Gorham — has become the most common driver-manager for non-Microsoft Windows platforms (and for one Microsoft platform, Interix). It offered full ODBC3 support and Unicode in advance of its competitors. Most Linux distributions as of 2006 ship it, including Red Hat, Mandriva and Gentoo. Several vendors of commercial databases, including IBM (DB2, Informix), Oracle and SAP (Ingres) use it for their own drivers. It includes GUI support for both KDE and GNOME. Many open source projects — including OpenOffice.org and Glade — also make use of it. It builds on any platform that supports the GNU autoconf tools (in other words, most of them). For licensing, UnixODBC uses the LGPL and the GPL.

UDBC

UDBC, a cross-platform fusion of ODBC and the SAG CLI, enabled non-Windows-based DBMS-independent application development at a time when shared-library implementations on Unix occurred only sporadically. This effort laid the foundation for the iODBC open source project.

See also

External links

Ambox style.png
 This article's external links may not follow Wikipedia's content policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links.

References

  1. ^ "Linux/UNIX ODBC - What is ODBC?". http://www.easysoft.com/developer/interfaces/odbc/linux.html#what_is_odbc. 
  2. ^ ISO/IEC 9075-3 -- Information technology -- Database languages -- SQL -- Part 3: Call-Level Interface (SQL/CLI)
  3. ^ "ODBC Versions". Linux/UNIX ODBC. Easysoft. http://www.easysoft.com/developer/interfaces/odbc/linux.html#odbc_versions. Retrieved 2009-10-27. 
  4. ^ Antal, Tiberiu Alexandru. "Access to an Oracle database using JDBC" (PDF). Cluj-Napoca: Technical University of Cluj-Napoca. p. 2. http://www.east.utcluj.ro/mb/mep/antal/Articole/orajdbc_2004.pdf. Retrieved 2009-10-27. "ODBC 1.0 was released in September 1992" 

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

 

Copyrights:

Computer Desktop Encyclopedia. THIS COPYRIGHTED DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY.
All other reproduction is strictly prohibited without permission from the publisher.
© 1981-2009 Computer Language Company Inc.  All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Open Database Connectivity".  Read more