Description

FireDAC is a Universal Data Access library for developing applications for multiple devices, connected to enterprise databases. With its powerful universal architecture, FireDAC enables native high-speed direct access from Delphi and C++Builder to InterBase, SQLite, MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, DB2, SQL Anywhere, Advantage DB, Firebird, Access, Informix, DataSnap and more. Database development is fun again with FireDAC. RAD Studio now includes FireDAC, a high performance data access library for developing applications for multiple devices, connected to enterprise databases.

What's New in FireDAC in XE7

FireDAC is being extended with new features and is at the core of the new Enterprise Mobility Services. Specifically, new features include:

FireDAC streaming support for blob fields and support for MSSQL file streams

New IBLite driver for desktop and mobile

Support for DBMS API command native timeouts.

FireDAC connection parameters are now displayed in the Object Inspector as a record

Data Explorer enhancements (primary keys and fields are displayed, foreign keys and fields are displayed, sequences/generators are now displayed)

New TFDBatchMove component for copying tables data and metadata between different databases

Improvements in TFDCustomSchemaAdapter component and in the TFDParam class

Data Access Engine

FireDAC datasets are built on top of a powerful data access engine. This lightweight, effective and flexible engine can be used directly in applications and serves as a powerful foundation to the datasets API. The engine consists of the dataset components and the non-component layers, represented by the flexible object oriented APIs.

Easy to use TDataSet descendant classes including TFDQuery, TFDMemTable, TFDStoredProc, and TFDTable

Dataset classes that are highly compatible with original BDE datasets and ClientDataSet

One of the fastest in-memory datasets, with sorting, filtering, aggregates, filtered and expression indexes, persistence and more

Local SQL engine for executing SQL queries against datasets

High-Performance Data Access

Database access is optimized using many different techniques often found only in database-specific components, which let you get faster data access out of the box.

Live Data Window mode enabling fast bi-directional navigation through large datasets

Array Data Manipulation Language (DML) command execution and Command Batches for batch applications and for minimizing network traffic

Customizable and flexible "row set" fetching

Direct support for asynchronous command execution, command execution timeout, and command execution canceling

Automatic, efficient and sophisticated update command generation and execution

Cached updates mode with ability to track correlated changes for several datasets with cascading updates

Full support for auto-incrementing fields, including those based on generators and table triggers

Unified API

FireDAC provides a range of features that help abstract the differences between database systems, making it easy to write code that does not have to be concerned about different DBMS dialects or other subtle differences between DBMSs.

SQL dialect abstraction through FireDAC escape sequences, conditional statements and macros

Data type unification with flexible and adjustable data type mapping

Unified error reporting, including DBMS-independent and DBMS-specific error information

Unified transaction support, with separate read and update transactions, and access to the full power of the specific transactions support of InterBase and Firebird

Support for multiple Unicode and ANSI encodings

Automatic connection recovery, automatically re-establishing the connection in case of an unstable environment

Disconnected connection mode, allowing application to continue to work without a physical connection to a database

Database events and notifications support

Unified SQL scripts support

Extended metadata retrieval capabilities

Native Driver Support

In addition to universal DBMS connectivity, FireDAC also support native database drivers that give you first-class access to the powerful and advanced features that make each database unique.

Access to specific APIs and features for several databases:

MySQL

Microsoft SQL Server

Oracle Database

InterBase

PostgreSQL

DataSnap

SQLite

Sybase SQL Anywhere

Microsoft Access

IBM DB2 Server

New in XE6! – Informix

Firebird

Advantage Database

Support for services like backup, restore, security management, and more

New in XE6! – Mobile database access on Android and iOS for these databases:

InterBase – InterBase ToGo and IBLite

SQLite

Additional Information