Client-Side APIs

When you want to build applications that access a PostgreSQL database, you use one (or more) of the client application programming interfaces (or APIs for short). PostgreSQL has a rich variety of APIs that support a number of programming languages.

PostgreSQL ships with the APIs shown in Table 5.1.

Table 5.1. PostgreSQL Client APIs

Interface Name	Supported Languages	Described In
libpq	C/C++	Chapter 8
libpgeasy	C/C++	Chapter 9
libpq++	C++	Chapter 10
ecpg	C/C++	Chapter 11
ODBC	C/C++	Chapter 12
JDBC	Java	Chapter 13
Perl	Perl	Chapter 14
PHP 1	PHP	Chapter 15
pgtcl	TCL	Chapter 16
PyGreSQL	Python	Chapter 17
pg.el [1]	Emacs Lisp	Not covered

^[1] The standard PostgreSQL distribution does not include the PHP or Emacs interfaces, but they are available separately on the web.

Table 5.1 is not all-inclusive. You can write PostgreSQL clients using languages not mentioned in Table 5.1. For example, Kylix (Borland's Pascal offering for Linux) offers a PostgreSQL interface. Also, many other languages (such as Microsoft Access and Visual Basic) provide access to PostgreSQL through the ODBC interface.