<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> <HTML ><HEAD ><TITLE >libdbi Concepts and Terminology</TITLE ><META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.79"><LINK REL="HOME" TITLE="Database Independent Abstraction Layer for C" HREF="index.html"><LINK REL="UP" TITLE="Introduction" HREF="intro.html"><LINK REL="PREVIOUS" TITLE="Description" HREF="description.html"><LINK REL="NEXT" TITLE="Modifications and redistribution of libdbi" HREF="gnugpl.html"></HEAD ><BODY CLASS="SECTION" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#0000FF" VLINK="#840084" ALINK="#0000FF" ><DIV CLASS="NAVHEADER" ><TABLE SUMMARY="Header navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TH COLSPAN="3" ALIGN="center" >Database Independent Abstraction Layer for C: libdbi Programmer's Guide</TH ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="description.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="80%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="bottom" >Chapter 1. Introduction</TD ><TD WIDTH="10%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="bottom" ><A HREF="gnugpl.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ></TABLE ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"></DIV ><DIV CLASS="SECTION" ><H1 CLASS="SECTION" ><A NAME="TERMINOLOGY" >1.2. libdbi Concepts and Terminology</A ></H1 ><P >In this guide, the terms <SPAN CLASS="QUOTE" >"user"</SPAN > and <SPAN CLASS="QUOTE" >"programmer"</SPAN > are used interchangably, since the target audience is the software developer using libdbi in his program. A star character (*) represents a wildcard matching any letters. For example, <SPAN CLASS="QUOTE" >"dbi_conn_*"</SPAN > would represent all functions beginning with <SPAN CLASS="QUOTE" >"dbi_conn_"</SPAN >.</P ><P >Before doing anything useful, your program must initialize libdbi. This creates an <SPAN CLASS="QUOTE" >"instance"</SPAN > of libdbi which is accessible through a handle. The libdbi architecture provides several <SPAN CLASS="QUOTE" >"drivers"</SPAN >, one for each type of database server. All drivers are loaded into memory by each libdbi instance upon initialization and are made available to the programmer. Once a driver is <EM >instantiated</EM >, it represents a distinct database session and is called a <SPAN CLASS="QUOTE" >"connection"</SPAN >.</P ></DIV ><DIV CLASS="NAVFOOTER" ><HR ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="100%"><TABLE SUMMARY="Footer navigation table" WIDTH="100%" BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="0" CELLSPACING="0" ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="description.html" ACCESSKEY="P" >Prev</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="index.html" ACCESSKEY="H" >Home</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="gnugpl.html" ACCESSKEY="N" >Next</A ></TD ></TR ><TR ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" >Description</TD ><TD WIDTH="34%" ALIGN="center" VALIGN="top" ><A HREF="intro.html" ACCESSKEY="U" >Up</A ></TD ><TD WIDTH="33%" ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top" >Modifications and redistribution of libdbi</TD ></TR ></TABLE ></DIV ></BODY ></HTML >