Problem
Customer is moving from Net Express 5.1 native code to Visual COBOL 2.1 managed .NET code and they need to know what database driver should they use in order to access their SQL Server database.
Resolution:
In Visual COBOL you can create three types of applications each as 32-bit or 64-bit.
1. Native code, which includes int/.gnt and native Windows .EXE/.DLL formats or native Unix/Linuz executables and .so files.
2. Managed code .NET on Windows, .EXE/.DLL assemblies which run under the .NET Framework Common Language Runtime system.
3. Managed code JVM on Windows or Unix/Linux, generates Java .class files that will run under the Java Virtual Machine platform.
The type of database driver that you use depends upon the type of executable you are running.
Native Code = ODBC Drivers
Managed .NET = ADO Providers
Managed JVM = JDBC Drivers
These are not interchangable so if you are moving from Native code under Net Express to managed .NET code under Visual COBOL then you must change from using an ODBC driver to using an ADO Provder for the same database vendor. ADO Providers are available for SQL Server, Oracle and DB2.