This section contains a variety of materials that should prove helpful while using ODBC, including common ODBC terms, tips for using ODBC-compliant applications, and several methods for retrieving results from ODBC.
The Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) interface allows applications to access data in a database using SQL as the query language. Think of ODBC as the common language that applications and databases have agreed to speak. Some ODBC terminology is described below:
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| ODBC Data Source Administrator | Maintains ODBC data sources and drivers. Additional data sources can be defined using this control panel. |
| ODBC-compliant Application | Applications, such as MS Access, MS Visual Basic or Business Objects that can access data through an ODBC interface. |
| ODBC Driver | Processes ODBC function calls. Each DBMS has its own driver. If the D3 Client Installation was completed, the D3 ODBC Driver is loaded. Sometimes this ODBC driver is referred to as the ODBC client. However, in general, the term client identifies the entire system where the application, driver and driver manager reside. |
| ODBC Data Source | When discussing ODBC, a data source typically refers to the configuration information set up in the ODBC Data Source Administrator that points to a specific database. |
| Database with ODBC Server | For our purposes, this is the D3 ODBC server. |