## 7.5. The Marriage of DBI and ODBC

The DBI has been strongly influenced by ODBC and the international standards that lie behind it (X/Open SQL CLI and ISO/IEC 9075-3:1995 SQL/CLI). The development of the `DBD::ODBC` module has given the DBI a more solid footing in the world of ODBC.

The DBI specification naturally evolves over time. The ODBC standard gives it a standards-based framework to build around. So, for example, if a method to return information about the datatypes supported by a database needs to be added, then following the proven standard function that makes much more sense than defining a new way. Thus, the DBI `type_info` method is modeled very closely on the `GetTypeInfo` ODBC function.

As the DBI and `DBD::ODBC` modules evolve, they'll naturally move closer together. As there are two excellent portable Open Source driver managers available,[66] the `DBD::ODBC` module should become as portable as DBI itself. At that point, it may well make sense to combine the two.

> [66]It's available from the FreeODBC project at: http://users.ids.net/~bjepson/FreeODBC/.

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