Client access

This section describes the differences in how clients access a Firebird and an MS SQL database.

The standard command-line utility is isql. This is used usually when executing large scripts, or when writing batch files.

When a graphical user interface (GUI) is available, the administration tool will most probably be IBConsole. This tool is similar to MS SQL's Enterprise Manager.

There are three basic mechanisms to get to a Firebird database. You can either use the raw C API interface, an Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) driver, or an OLE DB driver (the latter is used also for ActiveX Data Objects, ADO, access).

Using the raw C API allows developers to write portable code. All platforms support this API. This is also the foundation for the popular Delphi and C++ Builder component sets, such as InterBase Objects (IBO) and InterBase Express (IBX).

Using an ODBC driver lets developers write code that can be reused with different databases, as long as they restrict themselves to a common SQL subset. There are many tools which can use Firebird through ODBC drivers.

Using an OLE DB drivers lets developers use Microsoft's popular ADO API. This allows the Firebird database to be reached from tools such as Visual Basic or ActiveX Server Pages (ASP). The most popular driver is currently Microsoft's own OLE DB→ODBC bridge.