The Marriage of DBI and ODBC (Programming the Perl DBI)

7.5. The Marriage of DBI and ODBC

The DBI has been strongly influenced by ODBC and the international standards that lie behind it (X/Open SQL CLI and ISO/IEC 9075-3:1995 SQL/CLI). The development of the DBD::ODBC module has given the DBI a more solid footing in the world of ODBC.

The DBI specification naturally evolves over time. The ODBC standard gives it a standards-based framework to build around. So, for example, if a method to return information about the datatypes supported by a database needs to be added, then following the proven standard function that makes much more sense than defining a new way. Thus, the DBI type_info method is modeled very closely on the GetTypeInfo ODBC function.

As the DBI and DBD::ODBC modules evolve, they'll naturally move closer together. As there are two excellent portable Open Source driver managers available,[66] the DBD::ODBC module should become as portable as DBI itself. At that point, it may well make sense to combine the two.

[66]It's available from the FreeODBC project at: http://users.ids.net/~bjepson/FreeODBC/.