Re: Informix CLI - What is it & When is it needed

Just one tiny thing here Art: You say: "not have to go through the overhead of an ODBC driver" But you do. The CLI is an ODBC driver. You ARE doing ODBC calls when you use the CLI. You could use any other ODBC driver the same way. Sometimes with better performance and for sure with better functionality and easier installation. On Wed, 11 Feb 1998 12:24:17 -0500, "Art S. Kagel" <kagel@bloomberg.com> wrote: >Frank Catrine wrote: >> >> Can anyone give me a god explanation of CLI? >> >> Specifically what is it and how it is used, and why it >> would be needed? What development tools, >> languages, etc. require it? >> >> I have read the manual, but the further I dig, the darker >> the grey cloud surrounding CLI gets. > >CLI is a function level Aplication Programming Interface to Informix >databases. It is essentially the ODBC function call front-end to the >Informix proprietary interface so you can port ODBC or Sybase API code >to Informix and not have to go through the overhead of an ODBC driver >or re-write using ESQL-C. It is callable from "C" and any language (in >general, ignoring system specific dependencies) that can call standard >"C" functions. So you could call CLI from FORTRAN if you write wrapper >functions to translate the function naming and calling conventions (ie >by-value -vs- by-reference). > >Art S. Kagel Nils Myklebust NM Data AS Norway E-mail: Nils.Myklebust@nmdata.com