JDBCTM-ODBC Bridge Enhancements

Documentation Contents JDBC

The JDBC-ODBC Bridge allows applications written in the Java^TM programming language to use the JDBC^TM API with many existing ODBC drivers. The Bridge is itself a driver based on JDBC technology ("JDBC driver") that is defined in the class sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver. The Bridge defines the JDBC subprotocol odbc.

Status of the JDBC-ODBC Bridge

The JDBC-ODBC Bridge should be considered a transitional solution. Sun Microsystems and Merant are working to make the Bridge more reliable and robust, but they do not consider it a supported product. With the development of pure-Java JDBC drivers, the JDBC-ODBC Bridge should become unnecessary.

Why not just use ODBC?

The JDBC-ODBC Bridge offers several advantages over "naked" ODBC.

• The ODBC API is strongly oriented toward C/C++ programmers. The JDBC-ODBC Bridge makes it unnecessary for programmers using the Java programming language to deal with non-Java language concepts.

• The ODBC API is extremely complex and intermingles high-level and low-level functions. The JDBC-ODBC Bridge allows the programmer to rely on the JDBC API, which is relatively simple and easy to learn.

• The JDBC-ODBC Bridge lets a program deal with ODBC through a standardized JDBC interface. That helps a program avoid being tied to ODBC when a better solution comes along.

Why use ODBC at all?

The ideal is "Pure Java": no native code, no platform-dependent features. But you may need to begin your development effort right away, without waiting for your DBMS to offer a Java-only JDBC driver. Partly-native drivers, such as the JDBC-ODBC Bridge, let you create programs that easily adapt to Pure Java drivers as they become available.

What's new with the JDBC-ODBC Bridge?

• A jdbc:odbc: connection can now have a charSet property, to specify a Character Encoding Scheme other than the client default. For possible values, see the JDK 1.1 Internationalizaton specification on the Java Software Web Site.
  The following code fragment shows how to set 'Big5' as the character set for all character data.

         // Load the JDBC-ODBC bridge driver
         Class.forName(sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver) ;
   
         // setup the properties 
         java.util.Properties prop = new java.util.Properties();
         prop.put("charSet", "Big5");
         prop.put("user", username);
         prop.put("password", password);
   
         // Connect to the database
         con = DriverManager.getConnection(url, prop);
  

• The bridge now supports JDBC 2.0 features, which includes batch updates, scrollable cursors, and so on.