Microsoft’s ODBC is the most commonly used driver to connect to the database as it can connect to almost all databases on most of the platforms. However, ODBC uses the concept of pointers and other constructs that are not supported by Java.
Therefore, JDBC-ODBC bridge driver was developed which translates the JDBC API to the ODBC API and vice versa. This bridge acts as interface that enables all DBMS which support ODBC (Open Data Base Connectivity) to interact with Java Applications. JDBC-ODBC bridge is implemented as a class file and a native library. The name of the class file is JdbcOdbc.class. On windows platform, native library called JDBCODBC.DLL is used.
Figure shows the JDBC application architecture in which a front-end application uses JDBCAPI for interacting with JDBC Driver Manager. Here, JDBC Driver Manager is the backbone of JDBC architecture. It acts as interface that connects a Java application to the driver specified in the Java program. Next, is the JDBC-ODBC bridge which helps the JDBC to access ODBC data sources.
Dinesh Thakur holds an B.C.A, MCDBA, MCSD certifications. Dinesh authors the hugely popular