Neoview ODBC Drivers Manual (R2.3)

2 HP Neoview UNIX Drivers Overview
Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a widely accepted application programming interface
(API) for database access. It is based on the Call-Level Interface (CLI) specifications from X/Open
and ISO/IEC for database APIs and uses Structured Query Language (SQL) as its database access
language.
ODBC is designed for maximum interoperability — that is, the ability of a single application to
access different database management systems (DBMSs) with the same source code. Database
applications call functions in the ODBC interface, which are implemented in database-specific
modules called drivers. The use of drivers isolates applications from database-specific calls in
the same way that printer drivers isolate word processing programs from printer-specific
commands. Because drivers are loaded at run time, a user only has to add a new driver to access
a new DBMS; it is not necessary to recompile or relink the application.
The HP Neoview ODBC driver for Linux, HP-UX (32–bit), and IBM AIX® provides two libraries.
One library is the ODBC driver (libhodbc_drvr). The other library (libhpodbc) provides
the driver manager functionality along with the ODBC driver in a single library.
The HP Neoview ODBC driver for HP-UX 64–bit provides two libraries. One library is the ODBC
driver (libhodbc64_drvr) and the other library (libhpodbc64) provides the driver manager
functionality along with the ODBC driver in a single library.
The packaged driver manager only supports the HP Neoview ODBC driver.
If you are using 32–bit drivers (IBM AIX®, LINUX, HP-UX(IA-64), HP-UX(PA-RISC, or Sun
SPARC®), you must compile your applications that are not 32-bit as 32-bit.
This section describes:
• “Driver Components”
• “Data Sources”
• “Connections”
• “Object Naming and Mapping”
• “Release Considerations and Restrictions”
• “Traces”
• “Using the Driver With a Third Party Driver Manager”
• “INFOSTATS Command ”
• “Unsupported ODBC API Functions and Data Types”
Driver Components
To configure ODBC client access to the HP Neoview database, the HP Neoview Database
Connectivity Service (NDCS) requires data source definitions on both the Neoview database and
client workstation
Driver components can be installed on any workstation running Linux, HP-UX, or IBM AIX®.
These are the client components:
Text file that contains client data sources.MXODSN file
Run the sample program to verify a connection for HP
Neoview ODBC Linux, HP-UX (32 and 64–bit), and IBM
AIX® drivers.
Sample program
Is 3.0 compliant and implements a subset of the ODBC
3.51 APIs. Enables an ODBC client application to access
the Neoview database.
HP Neoview ODBC driver
Driver Components 23