Overview

Delphi's support for database applications is one of the programming environment's key features. Many programmers spend most of their time writing data-access code, which needs to be the most robust portion of a database application. This chapter provides an overview of Delphi's extensive support for database programming.

What you won't find here is a discussion of the theory of database design. I'm assuming that you already know the fundamentals of database design and have already designed the structure of a database. I won't delve into database-specific problems; my goal is to help you understand how Delphi supports database access.

I'll begin with an explanation of the alternatives Delphi offers in terms of data access, and then I'll provide an overview of the database components available in Delphi. This chapter focuses on the use of the TClientDataSet component for accessing local data, deferring all the client/server database access to Chapter 14, "Client/Server with dbExpress." I'll include an overview of the TDataSet class, an in-depth analysis of the TField components, and the use of data-aware controls. Chapter 14 follows up by providing information about more advanced database programming topics, particularly client/server programming with the use of the dbExpress library (and the InterBase Express components).

Finally, notice that almost everything discussed in this chapter is cross-platform. In particular, the examples can be ported to CLX and to Linux by recompiling and referring to CDS files in the proper folders.