Jump to content

Database abstraction layer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by DarkLordSeth (talk | contribs) at 00:58, 17 October 2004 (Initial article). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

A database abstraction layer, is an Application Programming Interface or seperate piece of software which is used by a program to communicate with a database such as MySQL or Access. The purpose of a database abstraction layer is to change the way another program communicates with a database. The idea behind this may be interoperability, ease of use or the ability to change or check data as it is passed on to the database.

A good example of a database abstraction layer would be ODBC. ODBC is a platform-independant implementation of a database abstraction layer. The user installs specific driver-software, through which ODBC can communicate with a database or set of databases. The user then has the ability to have programs communicate with ODBC, which then relays the results back and forth between the user programs and the database. Another popular use for database abstraction layers are among object-orientated programming languages, in which a database can be represented through an object, whose methods and members ( or the equivalent thereof in other programming languages ) represent various functionalities of the database.

See also


This article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Database_abstraction_layer&oldid=8563831"