Programming the Perl DBI

Appendix B. Driver and Database Characteristics

In this appendix, we hope to give you a flavor of the functionality and quirks of different DBI drivers and their databases.

The line between the functionality and quirks of a given driver and the functionality and quirks of its corresponding database is rather blurred. In some cases, the database has functionality that the driver can’t or doesn’t access; in others, the driver may emulate functionality that the database doesn’t support, such as placeholders. So when you see the terms driver or database below, take them with a pinch of salt.

Our primary goals are:

• to provide a simple overview of each driver and database.

• to help you initially select a suitable DBI driver and database for your new applications.

• to help you identify potential issues if you need to port an existing application from one driver and database combination to another.

We don’t attempt to describe the drivers and databases in detail here, and we’re not reproducing their documentation. We’re only interested in the key features that are most commonly used or relevant to our goals. And for those features, we’re just providing an outline guide, sometimes little more than signposts. Consult the database and driver documentation for full details.

With the cooperation of the driver authors, we have produced descriptions for the following drivers and databases:

DBD::ADO

Microsoft “Active Data Objects”

DBD::CSV

General “Comma Separated Value” ASCII files

DBD::DB2

IBM DB2

DBD::Empress ...