ODBC Driver for InterBase 6, 6.5, 7, 7.5, 2009 and 10 (XE)
The Easysoft ODBC-InterBase Driver lets ODBC-enabled applications access local or remote InterBase 6, 6.5, 7, 7.5, 2009 and 10 (XE) databases fromWindows, Linux and major Unix platforms.
The Easysoft ODBC-InterBase Driver is compatible with the Microsoft ODBC Driver Manager and unixODBC, the open source ODBC Driver Manager, which is included with the distribution on non-Windows platforms. The ODBC-InterBase Driver installation can automatically install the driver intounixODBC, making the ODBC-InterBase Driver immediately available to your ODBC applications. The unixODBC project is currently led by Easysoft developer Nick Gorham and we have many years of experience in supporting and testing our drivers withunixODBC.
Easysoft ODBC-InterBase Driver data sources can be configured to support a wide range of InterBase features. Supported features include:
- All InterBase data types.
- Direct access to the InterBase catalog.
- Full size metadata names.
- Roles.
- SQL dialects.
- Transactions.
- Stored procedures.
The Easysoft ODBC-InterBase Driver supports both types of InterBase stored procedure:
- Select procedures, which return a result set.
- Executable procedures, which optionally return values in output parameters.
Easysoft ODBC-InterBase Driver configuration settings allow the driver to use the appropriate InterBase method for calling Select or Executable procedures while enabling an application to call either type of procedure by using the standardODBC escape sequence. The ODBC-InterBase Driver therefore allows ODBC-enabled applications to use the expected mechanism for calling procedures, guaranteeing compatibility and providing independence from feature implementation proprietary to InterBase.
The Easysoft ODBC-InterBase Driver also supports applications that call procedures by using the InterBase syntax rather than theODBC escape sequence.
In addition, the Easysoft ODBC-InterBase Driver:
- Conforms to the ODBC 3.5 specification and so provides the expected functionality for ODBC 3 applications such as ADO. The Easysoft ODBC-InterBase Driver will also work with olderODBC applications. Supported applications include ApplixWare, OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Access. Supported interfaces include Perl DBI and DBD::ODBC, Python mxODBC and pyodbc and PHP.
- Provides both ANSI and Unicode access to InterBase databases, converting from the internal UTF8 storage format used by the InterBase server. Default character sets may be configured and all conversions are done transparently and automatically. ANSI only applications such as Microsoft Query will only "see" 8 Bit ANSI data, while Unicode applications such asMicrosoft Access are provided with direct access to 16 Bit Unicode data.
- Can be configured to:
- Include or exclude schema information from metadata information for applications which would use the schema names inSQL where they will not be accepted.
- Wait for the active transaction to complete before executing another transaction or report update conflicts. This mechanism lets you choose how the Easysoft ODBC-InterBase Driver behaves when conflicting updates from concurrent applications are detected.
- Support the InterBase 6 metadata precision.
- Handle the different quoting schemes in different dialects.
- Provide read-only access to a database—no updates, inserts or deletes. The default is full insert/update/delete support.
- Override the default character set in use.
- Automatically perform commits on selects calling procedures which perform updates.
- Use different transaction isolation methods.
- Provide null schema workarounds for applications that treat an empty string as an invalid schema name.
- Control numeric precision information.
- Control the method used to convert between UNICODE and ANSI data.
- Supports older (pre InterBase 6.0) databases. Due to changes in the metadata storage for pre InterBase 6.0 databases, at run time the Easysoft ODBC-InterBase Driver will detect the version of InterBase being used and transparently adjust its operation to match the available data. In cases where the detection fails (for instance with partially upgraded databases) the version may be manually configured.
