Programming Interfaces Guide
CHAPTER 1. Programming Interface Overview
Sybase Open Client provides customer applications, third-party products, and other Sybase products with the interfaces needed to communicate with Adaptive Server Anywhere and other Open Servers.
You should consider using the Open Client interface if you are concerned with Adaptive Server Enterprise compatibility or if you are using other Sybase products that support the Open Client interface, such as Replication Server.
The Open Client interface is described in The Open Client Interface. Other information is presented in Adaptive Server Anywhere as an Open Server.
Open Client architectureOpen Client can be thought of as comprising two components: programming interfaces and network services.
Open Client provides two core programming interfaces for writing client applications: Client-Library and DB-Library.
Open Client DB-Library provides support for older Open Client applications, and is a completely separate programming interface from Client-Library. DB-Library is documented in the Open Client DB-Library/C Reference Manual, provided with the Sybase Open Client product.
Client-Library programs also depend on CS-Library, which provides routines that are used in both Client-Library and Server-Library applications. Client-Library applications can also use routines from Bulk-Library to facilitate high-speed data transfer.
Both CS-Library and Bulk-Library are included in the Sybase Open Client, available separately.
Open Client network services include Sybase Net-Library, which provides support for specific network protocols such as TCP/IP and DECnet. The Net-Library interface is invisible to application programmers. However, on some platforms an application may need a different Net-Library driver for different system network configurations. Depending on your host platform, the Net-Library driver is specified either by the system's Sybase configuration, or when you compile and link your programs.
Instructions for driver configuration can be found in the Open Client/Server Configuration Guide. Instructions for building Client-Library programs can be found in the Open Client/Server Programmer's Supplement.