Embedded SQL is a database programming interface for the C and C++ programming languages. It consists of SQL statements intermixed with (embedded in) C or C++ source code. These SQL statements are translated by a SQL preprocessor into C or C++ source code, which you then compile.

At runtime, embedded SQL applications use a SQL Anywhere interface library to communicate with a database server. The interface library is a dynamic link library (DLL) or shared library on most platforms.

SQL Anywhere provides two flavors of embedded SQL. Static embedded SQL is simpler to use, but is less flexible than dynamic embedded SQL.