Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a standard software API specification for using database management systems (DBMS). ODBC is independent of programming language, database system and operating system.
ODBC was created by the SQL Access Group and first released in September, 1992. ODBC is based on the Call Level Interface (CLI) specifications from SQL, X/Open (now part of The Open Group), and the ISO/IEC.
The ODBC API is a library of ODBC functions that let ODBC-enabled applications connect to any database for which an ODBC driver is available, execute SQL statements, and retrieve results.
The goal of ODBC is to make it possible to access any data from any application, regardless of which database management system (DBMS) is handling the data. ODBC achieves this by inserting a middle layer called a database driver between an application and the DBMS. This layer translates the application's data queries into commands that the DBMS understands.
The MySQL Connector/ODBC is the name for the family of MySQL ODBC drivers (previously called MyODBC drivers) that provide access to a MySQL database using the industry standard Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) API. This reference covers Connector/ODBC 3.51 and Connector/ODBC 5.1. Both releases provide an ODBC compliant interface to MySQL Server.
MySQL Connector/ODBC provides both driver-manager based and native interfaces to the MySQL database, which full support for MySQL functionality, including stored procedures, transactions and, with Connector/ODBC 5.1, full Unicode compliance.