Executing SQL statements in applications

The way you include SQL statements in your application depends on the application development tool and programming interface you use.

  • ADO.NET   You can execute SQL statements using a variety of ADO.NET objects. The SACommand object is one example:
    SACommand cmd = new SACommand(
         "DELETE FROM Employees WHERE EmployeeID = 105", conn );
    cmd.ExecuteNonQuery();

    See SQL Anywhere .NET Data Provider.

  • ODBC   If you are writing directly to the ODBC programming interface, your SQL statements appear in function calls. For example, the following C function call executes a DELETE statement:
    SQLExecDirect( stmt,
        "DELETE FROM Employees
         WHERE EmployeeID = 105",
        SQL_NTS );

    See SQL Anywhere ODBC API.

  • JDBC   If you are using the JDBC programming interface, you can execute SQL statements by invoking methods of the statement object. For example:
    stmt.executeUpdate(
        "DELETE FROM Employees
         WHERE EmployeeID = 105" );

    See SQL Anywhere JDBC API.

  • Embedded SQL   If you are using embedded SQL, you prefix your C language SQL statements with the keyword EXEC SQL. The code is then run through a preprocessor before compiling. For example:
    EXEC SQL EXECUTE IMMEDIATE
     'DELETE FROM Employees
      WHERE EmployeeID = 105';

    See SQL Anywhere embedded SQL.

  • Sybase Open Client   If you use the Sybase Open Client interface, your SQL statements appear in function calls. For example, the following pair of calls executes a DELETE statement:
    ret = ct_command( cmd, CS_LANG_CMD,
                      "DELETE FROM Employees
                       WHERE EmployeeID=105"
                     CS_NULLTERM,
                     CS_UNUSED);
    ret = ct_send(cmd);

    See Sybase Open Client API.

  • Application development tools   Application development tools such as the members of the Sybase Enterprise Application Studio family provide their own SQL objects, which use either ODBC (PowerBuilder) or JDBC (Power J) under the covers.

For more detailed information about how to include SQL in your application, see your development tool documentation. If you are using ODBC or JDBC, consult the software development kit for those interfaces.

Applications inside the database server

In many ways, stored procedures and triggers act as applications or parts of applications running inside the database server. You can also use many of the techniques here in stored procedures.

For more information about stored procedures and triggers, see Using procedures, triggers, and batches.

Java classes in the database can use the JDBC interface in the same way as Java applications outside the server. This chapter discusses some aspects of JDBC. For more information about using JDBC, see SQL Anywhere JDBC API.