dbExpress
dbExpress is a database interface developed by Borland which is available in the development tools Borland Delphi (since Delphi 6) and C ++ Builder .
This interface is based on its own drivers and is quite high-performance, but only offers unidirectional access. This means that you can only query data in one direction in the amount of data that you have received from the database. "Walking backwards" is not provided. That makes the amount of data easier and leaner. Updates must then be added via simple, supplied components such as "DataSetProvider" (which automatically assembles the appropriate update statement in SQL) that are included in the IDE.
Drivers are supplied for many common databases (more or less depending on the edition of the development tools), but there are also drivers for a whole range of databases that are not directly supported by Borland. An ODBC → dbExpress driver is also available.
In the past, the dbExpress drivers were generally not Unicode- compatible, but used ANSI -coded strings. As of Delphi 2006, some of the drivers were converted to Unicode and since Delphi 2009 most of the drivers supplied are fully Unicode-capable, as Delphi was also converted to Unicode with this version. There is now a new database library called FireDAC, which also includes extended database-specific functions. It is therefore to be expected that dbExpress will be removed from the product at some point.
Supplied drivers:
- InterBase (Embarcadero's own database product)
- MySQL
- Oracle
- DB2
- Informix
- Microsoft SQL Server
- Sybase Adaptive Server
- Firebird (since Delphi 2010 from Enterprise Edition)
- SQLite (since at least Delphi XE3)
- ODBC bridge driver (since Delphi XE2 from Enterprise Edition)
- Trace driver for logging in data base statements, from Delphi 2007 (from dbExpress 4)
Other known third-party drivers:
- SQLite
- SAP MaxDB (formerly SAPdb)
- Firebird
- ODBC → dbExpress
- Mimer
- PostgreSQL (pgExpress, Zeos Library)