BDE Drivers

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 574.

Lecture 2. The Borland Database Engine

To enable access to local databases and to client/server databases, Delphi provides the Borland Database Engine (BDE). The BDE is a collection of DLLs and utilities that enables access to a variety of databases.

To talk to client/server databases, you must have the Client/Server version of Delphi. This version ships with SQL Links drivers used by the BDE to talk to client/server databases. FIGURE 1.2 shows the relationship between your application, the BDE, and the database.

Naturally, database formats and APIs vary widely. For this reason the BDE comes with a set of drivers that enables your application to talk to several different types of databases. These drivers translate high-level database commands (such as open or post) into commands specific to a particular database type. This permits your application to connect to a database without needing to know the specifics of how that database works.

The drivers that are on your system depend on the version of Delphi you own. All versions of Delphi come with a driver to enable you to connect to Paradox and dBASE databases. This driver, called STANDARD, provides everything you need to work with these local databases.

The Client/Server version of Delphi includes drivers to connect to databases by Sybase, Oracle, Informix, InterBase, and others.