With ForDBC the Fortran programmer can read and write tables of any database for which an ODBC driver is supplied.

And this is the case with most databases of manufactures such as Oracle, Microsoft, IBM, Sybase. And this is also true for spreadsheets as they are created with Excel oder Lotus. They are equipped with an ODBC driver (ODBC=Open Database Connectivity Standard).

Under Windows an ODBC interface is ready to be used. However the ODBC functions are not easy to access by a Fortran programmer because the documentation and the tools supplied by Microsoft are designed for C/C++ or VB programmers. ForDBC offers help. The Fortran interface provided by ForDBC is almost complete with respect to the ODBC v3.5 specification. This means that with ForDBC you can call all of these ODBC functions as if they were programmed in Fortran. Furthermore hundredths of ODBC and SQL specific constants are supplied. Simply include in your Fortran program the source line

USE ForDBC

and you are ready to use the ODBC functions and constants as you find them documented in the Windows ODBC API. This documentation either comes with your compiler (e.g., Compaq Visual Fortran, or Intel Visual Fortran, or Microsoft Visual Studio) or it can be found in the Microsoft Windows Platform Software Development Kit (SDK) which is supplied with most software development tools offered by Microsoft. Or you find it on Microsoft's Developer WebSite. Because getting started with ODBC can be tedious, ForDBC is equipped with several example programs (completely in Fortran) which show you how to use ODBC. They demonstrate how to read from or write to tables of a Microsoft Access database or an Excel spreadsheet.

ForDBC comes with a compact documentation (PDF) which provides you with the essential information that you need for a quick start into ODBC programming.

Users of Compaq Visual Fortran and Intel Visual Fortran are supplied with a complete workspace (.dsw) and solution (.sln), respectively, which contains several sample projects which show how to access a database in several ways. So, a simple "Build" creates all the examples from scratch. And you are ready to debug them to understand how they work.

Prices & Licensing

We deliver a single user licence and the software including the documentation by email. You can use ForDBC in your programs (.exe) and distribute them without any royalty payments or runtime fees.
Prices depend on the compiler you want to use ForDBC with. Please have a look at our pricelist.
Due to little demand, we still deliver version 2 of ForDBC for Lahey Fortran. For Compaq and Intel Visual Fortran the most recent version (v3.0) will be delivered.
To order, simply send a purchase order by email or fax (+49(0)30/92900872). Payment is possible by credit card (VISA and Mastercard/Eurocard are accepted) or by money transfer to our account.

Example

ForDBC provides you two simple data bases - an MS/Excel sheet (ODBCTest.xls) and an MS/Access database (test-db.mdb). The MS/Access database contains a table named "Tabelle1". Its structure and contents:

This table contains 4 columns named "ID", "I4", "DP" and "STR". This example shall demonstrate how to use the common Fortran variable types INTEGER, REAL. DOUBLE PRECISION and CHARACTER.
To obtain all values of the table one would execute the SQL command:

SELECT id, i4, dp, str FROM tabelle1

((SQL = Structured Query Language). If you want to execute this command in a Fortran program, then you can do so calling an ODBC function which is made availabe via ForDBC:

 iRet = SQLExecDirect( hStmt, &
        "SELECT id, i4, dp, str FROM tabelle1"//CHAR(0), &
         SQL_NTSL )  ! the command string must be zero-terminated

This executes the SELECT command, but it does not deliver the table's contents. To get this in a Fortran program, the values in the table's rows have to be transferrred into corresponding Fortran variables (for better readability). We declare these Fortran variables (here in Fortran 77 notation)

INTEGER*2 Id
INTEGER*4 I4
DOUBLE PRECISION DP
CHARACTER Str*30

whose names are simply identical with those of the table's columns. These Fortran variables are bound to column specifications in the SQL command by calling the ODBC function SQLBindCol or SQLBindParameter, respectively. For example:

iRet = SQLBindColI2( hStmt, 1, &
           SQL_C_SSHORT, Id, 0, cbFixedId ) 
           ! SQLBindCol variant for INTEGER*2 argument 

binds the first parameter ("id") of the SELECT command to the Fortran variable "Id" (INTEGER*2). If then the ODBC function

iRet = SQLFetch( hStmt )

is executed, the Fortran variable "Id" will hold the value which is found in the current row of the column labeled "id" in table "tabelle1". Internally SQLFetch uses a row cursor which is incremented each time SQLFetch is executed. This means, to get the whole result set of the SELECT command, SQLFetch is to be called repeatedly.

A complete example program which demonstrates how the SELECT command above is programmed in Fortran can be found here (note: this still uses ForDBC v2, a previous version of ForDBC).

Support, Training etc.

If you have questions regarding ForDBC, we would be happy to assist you. We also offer ForDBC trainings or develop ODBC based software, if you prefer to have the database access being programmed in Fortran by some external expert.