Perl in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Database Drivers (DBDs)

The success of DBI is that it is only half of the story. The other half is a DBD, or a database driver. DBI provides the interface and framework for the drivers, but it’s the database drivers that do the real work. Drivers implement the DBI methods for the private interface functions of the corresponding database engine.

Unless you’re developing a sophisticated database application, you probably don’t care about the drivers except that you want to install the correct one. Table 12-1 lists database servers, where you can find them, and the DBD driver designed for it. (The freeware or shareware database servers are available for download, and some of the commercial servers offer evaluation copies for download.)

Table 12-1. Database servers

Server	URL	DBD
DB2	http://www.software.ibm.com/data/db2/	DBD::DB2
Empress	http://www.empress.com/	DBD::Empress
Fulcrum	http://www.fulcrum.com	DBD::Fulcrum
Informix	http://www.informix.com/	DBD::Informix
Ingres	http://www.cai.com/products/ingres.htm http://epoch.cs.berkeley.edu:8000/postgres/index.html	DBD::Ingres
miniSQL	http://www.hughes.com.au/	DBD::mSQL
MySQL	http://www.tcx.se/	DBD::mysql
Oracle	http://www.oracle.com/	DBD::Oracle
PostgreSQL	http://www.postgresql.org/	DBD::Pg
QuickBase	http://www.openbase.com/	DBD::QBase
Solid	http://www.solidtech.com/	DBD::Solid
Sybase	http://www.sybase.com/	DBD::Sybase