The ODBC driver libraries must be linked with your client application program. You can then call the functions that are defined in these libraries.

solidDB provides both a static and a dynamic version of the ODBC driver library.

Static libraries are linked to the executable program of your client application at the time that you do a compile-and-link operation. Dynamic libraries are stored separately from your executable and are loaded into memory at the time your program executes.

The advantage of a static library is that your application is largely self-contained; if you distribute the application to your customers, those customers do not have to install a separate shared library in addition to installing your application.

The advantage of a dynamic library is that, if more than one client uses that library, on many systems less disk space is required (and, on some platforms, less memory). For example, if you have two client applications that each link to a 5 MB static library, you need not only 5 MB of disk space to store the static library, but also 10 MB of additional disk space to store both copies of the library that are linked into the application. However, if you link two client applications to a dynamic library, no additional copies of that library are required; each application does not keep its own copy.

In Windows environments, solidDB provides an import library in some cases. Each import library is associated with a corresponding dynamic link library. Your application links to the import library. When the application is actually loaded and executed, the operating system loads the corresponding dynamic link library.