dbExpress | C++Builder 5 Developers Guide

dbExpress is a cross-platform, lightweight, fast, and open database access architecture. A dbExpress driver must implement a number of interfaces to get metadata, execute SQL queries or a stored procedure, and return a unidirectional cursor. We get back to this in a moment.

C++Builder supports both the VCL (Visual Component Library ”native to Windows) and CLX (Component Library for Xplatform ”both Windows and Linux at this time). Although dbExpress is classified as cross-platform, it can be used in both VCL and CLX applications.

C++Builder 6 (as well as Delphi and Kylix) was released in two major editions: Professional and Enterprise. The Professional edition includes dbExpress drivers for InterBase and MySQL. The Enterprise edition adds drivers for DB2 and Oracle 8i (public betas for Informix and other dbExpress drivers are also available).

NOTE

For a complete list of third-party drivers, check out John Kaster'sarticle on the Borland Community Web site at http://bdn.borland.com/article/0,1410,28371,00.html.

Custom dbExpress

And that's not all, because dbExpress was created as an Open Database Architecture, meaning that anyone can write a dbExpress compliant driver ”both on Linux for use with Kylix, and on Windows for use with Delphi and C++Builder. A more detailed article about the dbExpress internals by Ramesh Theivendran, the architect of dbExpress, is published on the Borland Community Web site at http://bdn.borland.com/article/0,1410,22495,00.html.

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