iSeries Access for Windows ODBC

A common database interface that uses SQL as its database access language. iSeries™ Access for Windows^® provides an ODBC driver to support this interface.

What is ODBC?

ODBC stands for open database connectivity. It consists of:

A well-defined set of functions (application programming interfaces)
Standards for SQL syntax (that are recommended but not imposed)
Error codes
Data types

The application programming interfaces provide a rich set of functions to connect to a database management system, run SQL statements and to retrieve data. Also included are functions to interrogate the SQL catalog of the database and the capabilities of the driver.

ODBC drivers return standard error codes and translate data types to a common (ODBC) standard. ODBC allows the application developer to obtain integrated database error information, and to avoid some of the most complex problems that are involved with making applications portable.

What you can do with ODBC:

Use ODBC to:

Send SQL requests to the database management system (DBMS).
Use the same program to access different database management system (DBMS) products without recompiling.
Create an application that is independent of the data communications protocol.
Handle data in a format convenient to the application.

The flexibility of ODBC APIs allows you to use them in transaction-based, line-of-business applications (where the SQL is predefined) and also in query tools (where the select statement is created at run time).

Structured Query Language (SQL):

ODBC supports dynamic SQL, which sometimes is associated with poor performance. However, careful use of parameter markers enables repeated statements to achieve static SQL-like performance. Also, extended dynamic SQL–a special capability of the iSeries Access for Windows ODBC driver–enables previously prepared SQL statements to achieve performance that rivals static SQL.

For more information on SQL, see the IBM^® SQL Reference book. View an HTML online version of the book, or print a PDF version, from the DB2 Universal Database™ for iSeries SQL Reference iSeries Information Center topic.

iSeries Access for Windows ODBC topics:

Note: The information linked to from this page applies to the iSeries Access for Windows 32-bit ODBC driver, the iSeries Access for Windows 64-bit ODBC driver, and the iSeries Access for Linux^® ODBC driver. For additional information regarding setup for the iSeries Access for Linux ODBC driver see iSeries ODBC Driver for Linux.

You can find documentation on the ODBC standard by searching for ODBC at the Microsoft^® Web site. Link outside the Information Center