what is a provider and driver

问题:

what are the roles of a driver and provider in database communication?

回答1:

These are database connector technologies used to bridge between a standard API and multiple database types having different communication patterns, data representations, and protocols.

The standard API could be ODBC or OLEDB, the more common ones on Windows.

Then an even higher-level API might talk to the middle API to talk to the Provider/Driver... to talk to the database engine. This higher-level API might be something like ADO or RDO.

The ODBC or OLEDB layer can be used directly, but this is rare in VB6 programs. These APIs are strongly C-oriented.