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Choosing the Correct Drivers
ColdFusion uses ODBC, OLE DB, and native database drivers to communicate with a
wide variety of popular database programs. This section introduces each type of
driver so you can decide which one best suits your needs.
About ODBC drivers
Any valid ODBC data source already installed on your system is automatically
available to your ColdFusion applications. You must also register it as a ColdFusion
data source so that you can configure it with ColdFusion-specific options, such as
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 odbc.ini file on
UNIX and in the Registry on Win32 platforms. The main role of the odbc.ini file is to
map a data source name (DSN) to a particular ODBC driver and options.
For detailed information about options specific to your ODBC drivers, see the
documentation that came with your database program or the ODBC driver
documentation, including online Help. For detailed information on the MERANT
ODBC drivers, see the MERANT DataDirect ODBC Reference, which is distributed
with ColdFusion as an Acrobat file. On UNIX machines, this file is installed by default
as: <installdir>/coldfusion/odbc/doc/odbcref.pdf. On Win32 machines, this file is
installed by default as: <installdir>/cfusion/bin/odbcref.pdf.
About OLE DB and native drivers
OLE DB, which is available only on Windows NT/2000, is a Microsoft specification
for a set of interfaces designed to access data, regardless of the data type.
Native database drivers are available for certain databases in ColdFusion Enterprise
Edition. You can access DB2, Informix, Sybase System 11 through Sybase Adaptive
Server 12.0, and Oracle 7.3.4, 8.0, and 8i databases through native database drivers
on both Windows NT and UNIX platforms.
For detailed information about OLE DB and native drivers, see Advanced ColdFusion
Server Administration.
Installing and Configuring ColdFusion Server
Chapter 6 Managing Data Sources
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