Acronym for Open Database Connectivity. A standard for accessing different database systems. An application can submit statements to ODBC using the ODBC flavor of SQL. ODBC then translates these to whatever flavor the database understands. Using the Oracle Open Client Adapter (OCA), an application can access different database management systems in one consistent manner. This allows an application developer to develop, compile, and ship an application without targeting a specific DBMS.
Note: In Oracle Reports 10g, ODBC is implemented using the JDBC-ODBC bridge.
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