Where To Go From Here; Choosing The Right Drivers; Odbc Drivers - MACROMEDIA COLDFUSION 4.5-ADMINISTRING COLDFUSION SERVER Manual

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Where to go from here

To use an existing database with your ColdFusion applications, you need to register or
create the data source using the ColdFusion Administrator. If you are using Informix,
DB2, Oracle, or Sybase database, and want to take advantage of the ColdFusion native
drivers, you also need to install and configure database client software.
The remaining sections in this chapter provide details about configuring ColdFusion
data sources for specific databases. Look for the section about your database; each
database section contains all the information you need to create and connect to data
sources on Windows and UNIX. See the "Contents" on page 77 to find your database.
The following sections apply to all databases and operating systems:
"Choosing the Right Drivers" on page 80 — Describes the different types of
drivers you can use to access data sources with ColdFusion Server (ODBC,
native, and OLE DB) and helps you decide which driver best suits your needs.
"Adding Data Sources for ColdFusion" on page 82 — Provides step-by-step
instructions for using the ColdFusion Administrator to add a data source. These
instructions apply to all platforms and drivers.
"Verifying ColdFusion Data Sources" on page 85 — Provides step-by-step
instructions for making sure that a data source has been correctly configured
and is available to your ColdFusion application pages.
"Using ColdFusion to Create a Data Source" on page 120 — Explains how you
can use ColdFusion code to generate database tables dynamically.

Choosing the Right Drivers

ColdFusion uses ODBC, OLE DB, and native database drivers to communicate with a
wide variety of popular database programs. This section describes each type of driver
so you can decide which best suits your needs.

ODBC Drivers

Any valid ODBC data source already installed on your system is automatically available
to your ColdFusion applications, but unless you register it as a ColdFusion data source,
you can't configure it with ColdFusion-specific options, like the ability to specify SQL
operations to restrict for the current data source.
When you create a data source on the Create ODBC Data Source page in the
ColdFusion Administrator, you can configure a number of settings for your ODBC data
source. The options available to you depend on which database driver you are using.
Data source definitions and option settings are stored in the
role of the
driver and options.
For detailed information about options specific to your OBDC drivers, refer to the
documentation that came with your database program or to the ODBC driver
file is to map a data source name (DSN) to a particular ODBC
odbc.ini
Administering ColdFusion Server
. The main
odbc.ini file