4.1 Introduction

DBTools.h++ relies on a successful connection to your database server. You must install your native database before building DBTools.h++, and you must be sure that you have a working database connection before you can build a DBTools.h++ application. This means you should be able to connect to your database using its command line utility and the example programs your database vendor supplied. Section 1.3.3, "Database Connectivity," outlines the steps for establishing a database connection. The Build Guide that comes with your DBTools.h++ package describes the process in more detail.

In this chapter, we discuss how to use the DBTools.h++ database classes to interact with your database. Here we show how class RWDBTable presents a uniform view of tabular data, and how the classes RWDBSelector, RWDBInserter, RWDBUpdater, and RWDBDeleter encapsulate the basic SQL constructs of SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE, respectively. We explain how to write SQL expressions in C++, and how to work with classes RWDBResult, RWDBReader, RWDBBulkReader, and RWDBBulkInserter to manage data.

To help clarify important points, we provide example programs throughout this chapter. You can copy the code from these programs to use in your own applications. The example programs are summarized in Table 6. If you are reading this manual online, click on the name to take you to the program:

Table 6 -- The DBTools.h++ example programs

Name	Topic
Example Program 1	Establishing connectivity
Example Program 2	Reading a database program
Example Program 3	Selecting from a single table
Example Program 4	Performing a join
Example Program 5	Unknown results from stored procedure
Example Program 6	Bulk reads and writes