Using this Book

The content of this book assumes that you are familiar with your operating system and its commands. It contains the following information:

A quick start chapter ("Quick Start Connect") that explains the basics for quickly configuring and testing the drivers.
"Using The Product" explains the drivers and ODBC, and discusses environment-specific subjects.
"Configuring the Product on UNIX/Linux" discusses UNIX and Linux, environment variables and configuration of the drivers. It also explains the structure of the system information file (used in UNIX and Linux environments) and provides a sample system information file, as well as discussing other driver tools for UNIX and Linux.
A chapter for each database driver. Each driver's chapter is structured in the same way. First, it lists which versions of the databases the driver supports, the operating environments in which the driver runs, and the driver requirements for your operating environment. Next, it explains how to configure a data source and how to connect to that data source. Finally, the chapter provides information about data types, ODBC conformance levels, isolation and lock levels supported, and other driver-specific information.

If you are writing programs to access ODBC drivers, you need to obtain a copy of the ODBC Programmer's Reference for the Microsoft Open Database Connectivity Software Development Kit, available from Microsoft Corporation.

Database drivers are continually being added to each operating environment. For the latest information about the specific drivers available for your platform, refer to the readme file in your software package or refer to the DataDirect Technologies World Wide Web page at:

http://www.datadirect.com/products/odbc/matrix/connectodbc.htm

NOTE: This book refers the reader to Web pages using URLs for more information about specific topics, including Web URLs not maintained by DataDirect Technologies. Because it is the nature of Web content to change frequently, DataDirect Technologies can guarantee only that the URLs referenced in this book were correct at the time of publishing.