Introduction to IDL DataMiner and ODBC

The IDL DataMiner is an Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) interface that allows IDL users to access and manipulate information from a variety of database management systems. We developed IDL DataMiner so that IDL users can have all the connectivity advantages of ODBC without having to understand the intricacies of ODBC or SQL (Structured Query Language).

What Is IDL DataMiner?

IDL DataMiner is a database-independent API for accessing and manipulating data stored in a database from within IDL. The IDL DataMiner allows you to do the following:

Connect to a database management system (DBMS)

Query a DBMS

Get information about the available database tables in a DBMS

Access a table in a DBMS

Create a table in a DBMS

Delete a table in a DBMS

Perform standard SQL operations in the DBMS

Get information about the columns in a selected table

Add/Change/Delete records in a table

What Is ODBC?

ODBC stands for Open Database Connectivity, an interface that allows applications to access data in database management systems (DBMSs) using Structured Query Language (SQL) as a standard for accessing data.

SQL is ODBC's standard for accessing data and is a widely accepted industry standard for data definition, data manipulation, data management, access protection, and transaction control. The IDL DataMiner was designed so that users would not be required to have a knowledge of SQL to access data sources. However, DataMiner does provide an execution routine which allows users to perform any valid SQL statement (including creating, retrieving, and deleting tables in a database).

The ODBC specification defines a vendor-independent API for accessing data stored in relational and non-relational databases. The Core functions and SQL grammar are based on work done by the X/Open SQL Access Group. The ODBC architecture is made up of four components:

Database Application. The database application calls functions defined in the ODBC API to access a data source.

Driver Manager. The Driver Manager implements the ODBC API and provides information to an application—such as a list of available data sources and drivers— loads drivers dynamically as they are needed, and provides argument and state transition checking.

Drivers. Each driver processes ODBC function calls and manages exchanges between an application and a data source.

Data Source. A data source contains the data that an application needs to access. The data source includes the data, the database management system (DBMS) in which the data is stored, the platform on which the DBMS resides, and the network (if any) used to access the DBMS.

An ODBC-compliant driver allows you to communicate between an ODBC-compliant application and a DBMS. For example, the SYBASE SQL Server 10 driver allows you to connect your ODBC-compliant application to a Sybase SQL Server 10 database.

An ODBC driver is available on most major platforms. The information in the initialization file that the drivers use, the functions and SQL grammar that the drivers support, and the error message formats are the same across all platforms.

The ODBC DriverSet is made up of two ODBC components—the Driver Manager and a set of database drivers. With the ODBC DriverSet, you can access, query, and update data in a number of different databases.

About the DataMiner ODBC Drivers

The IDL DataMiner includes a set of ODBC drivers known as Connect ODBC, that is produced by DataDirect Technologies. Information about these drivers is available at:

http://www.datadirect.com

IDL version 7.1 supports version 5.3 [Service Pack 1] of the Connect ODBC drivers for most platforms.

The following tables describe the ODBC drivers that are included with and supported by the IDL DataMiner, by platform.

Note
DataDirect Wire Protocol drivers do not require that database client software be installed. All other drivers require that the appropriate client software be present. For more information on DataDirect drivers, specific platform requirements, issues, and how to configure the ODBC driver for use with your database, see the appropriate version of the DataDirect Connect ODBC Reference manual. See About This Volume for further information on which manual is appropriate for your installation.

You must install version 2.6 or higher of the Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) on Windows platforms to use Connect ODBC drivers.

Table 1-1: Database Support by Platform, DataDirect version 5.3
Driver	Database	Windows		Linux		Solaris Sparc ^a
Driver	Database	32-bit	64-bit	32-bit	64-bit	32-bit	64-bit
Btrieve	Btrieve 6.5 Pervasive.SQL 7 Pervasive.SQL 2000	•
DB2 Wire Protocol	7.1, 7.2, 8.1, 9.1, 9.5 DB2 Universal Database (UDB) 7.x, 8.1, 8.2, 9.1	•	•	•	•	•	•
dBASE	dBASE IV, V Clipper FoxPro 2.5, 2.6, 3.0 FoxPro 6.0 with 3.0 functionality only FoxPro 3.0 database container (DBC)	•		•		•
Informix (client)	SE 7.2 Dynamic Server 9.2, 9.3, 9.4x, 10, 11	•				•
Informix Wire Protocol	Dynamic Server 9.2, 9.3, 9.4, 10	•	•	•	•	•
MySQL Wire Protocol	MySQL 5.0.x server	•	•	•	•	•	•
Oracle (client)	7.3.4+ (w/Net8 Client) 8.0.5+ 8i R1, R2, R3 9i R1, R2 10g R1, 11g	•	•	•	•	• ^b
Oracle Wire Protocol	8i R2, R3 9i R1, R2 10g R1, R2 11g	•	•	•	•	•	•
Paradox	4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10	•
SQL Server Wire Protocol	7.0 2000 (with Service Packs 1, 2, 3, 3a, 4) 2000 Desktop Engine 2000 Enterprise Edition (64-bit) 2005	•	•	•	•	•	•
Sybase Wire Protocol	Adaptive Server 11.5+ Adaptive Server Enterprise 12.0, 12.5x, 15	•	•	•	•	•	•
ASCII Text	n/a	•		•		•
XML	n/a	•

^a DataMiner is not available on Solaris X86 platforms

^bSUSE Enterprise Server 10.0 or 9.0 only