The Fortran ODBC Library (odbc.f) is a modern, lightweight, and robust interface designed to enable seamless interaction between Fortran applications and relational databases through the Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) standard. This library provides a set of Fortran modules and procedures that allow developers to connect to ODBC-compliant databases, execute SQL queries, and manage data directly from Fortran programs.
The primary goal of odbc.f is to bridge the gap between Fortran applications and database systems, enabling scientific, engineering, and data-intensive applications to integrate with databases such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, and others that support ODBC drivers. The library is designed with modern Fortran practices in mind, emphasizing type safety, modularity, and ease of use while maintaining compatibility with the ODBC API. The binding is nearly complete meaning that it implements all functions present in the ODBC v3.8 standard but the ones related to intervals. The underlying C-structure contains a union that is not (yet) compatible with the iso_c_binding introduced in modern Fortran.
odbc.f supports essential database operations, including:
This documentation provides comprehensive guidance on installing, configuring, and using the odbc.f library, along with examples and best practices for integrating database functionality into Fortran applications.
To build the library you need
| Name | Version | Platform | Architecture |
|---|---|---|---|
| GCC Fortran (MinGW) | 14 | Windows 10 | x86_64 |
| Intel oneAPI classic | 2021.5 | Windows 10 | x86_64 |
assertion.inc. It uses quite some preprocessor macros. It is known to work both with intel fpp and gnu cpp. Since the whole framework fits in a single file, it has been added directly to the repo.Linting, indentation, and styling are done with fprettify with the following settings
To open a connection to an ODBC data source, you have to create an object of type connection and call its open() member function:
For retrieving data from the database, you have to use the resultset type:
The resultset contains information about the columns like their types, names and number. Each column is bound by default to a string variable when executing the query. Now, whenever data is returned by the resultset, the first column's data will be stored in the variable strName. Data can be pulled out of the resultset object by calling either the first(), next(), previous() or last() member functions. For e.g., the following code prints out the value of the first column in the resultset:
For executing any other SQL statements, you have to call the execute() member function of connection:
The execute() function will return the number of rows affected by the statement. After database operations are over, the resources occupied by ODBC are automatically released by the connection finalizer.
One of the particularity of odbc.f is that the interface for the c-binding is automatically generated with swig-fortran using the ODBC header files. The headers have not been included in the include/ folder. They can be downloaded directly from the original repo. Make sure to place the files sql.h, sqlext.h and sqltypes.h in the include folder before using swig.
The following code will generate the file sql.f90, sqlext.f90 and sqltypes.f90.
[!Note] swig does not differentiate return value and will add as spurious intent(in) on the return argument. The sed line corrects that and generate the proper code.
The repo can be build using fpm
For convenience, the repo also contains a response file that can be invoked as follows:
(For the Windows users, that command does not work in Powershell since '@' is a reserved symbol. One should use the '–' as follows: fpm --% @build. This is linked to the following issue)
Building with ifort requires to specify the compiler name (gfortran by default)
Alternatively, the compiler can be set using fpm environment variables.
Besides the build command, several commands are also available:
The project was originally developed on Windows with Visual Studio 2019. The repo contains the solution file (Odbc.f.sln) to get you started with Visual Studio 2019.
Contributions are what make the open source community such an amazing place to learn, inspire, and create. Any contributions you make are greatly appreciated. So, thank you for considering contributing to odbc.f. Please review and follow these guidelines to make the contribution process simple and effective for all involved. In return, the developers will help address your problem, evaluate changes, and guide you through your pull requests.
By contributing to odbc.f, you certify that you own or are allowed to share the content of your contribution under the same license.
Please follow the style used in this repository for any Fortran code that you contribute. This allows focusing on substance rather than style.
A bug is a demonstrable problem caused by the code in this repository. Good bug reports are extremely valuable to us—thank you!
Before opening a bug report:
A good bug report should include all information needed to reproduce the bug. Please be as detailed as possible:
This information will help the developers diagnose the issue quickly and with minimal back-and-forth.
If you have a suggestion that would make this project better, please create a pull request. You can also simply open an issue with the tag "enhancement". Don't forget to give the project a star! Thanks again!
git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)Fixes #<issue-number>. If your PR implements a feature that adds or changes the behavior of odbc.f, your PR must also include appropriate changes to the documentation and associated units tests.In brief,
Distributed under the MIT License.