Rating: 
Summary: best code development guide I've ever seen
Review: A software development book has to be pretty good for me to give it a 5 star rating, and this one really is. An associate of mine said he needed to learn more about ODBC, and I explained that this book is great as a reference AND as a tutorial. That's a claim that can be made about a precious few books. Later, I happened to be reading the foreword (not written by the author of the book), and that's exactly what the guy who wrote it said about this book, and it really is true. Things in this book are where I expect them to be. I don't have to look very long to find what I want. If you need to do ODBC programming, I can't imagine that there's a better book out there to use as a guide.
Rating: 
Summary: Doesn't cover ODBC 3.5 specification completely.
Review: Although the author notes this book doesn't contain any Unicode issue, there are many incorrect descriptions regarding the text data type and missing information about ODBC 3.5 new features. For example, column size of data may represent the length of data in characters in case the data is text, while this book describe explicitly "in bytes". The meanings are totally different especially when you handle non-Latin text data. I should recommend the serious user/developer to get Microsoft official documents and I should say this book is not based on ODBC 3.5, rather, ODBC 3.0.
Rating:
Summary: A good book
Review: I am a person of learning by example. I don't use all functions of ODBC, but I use whatever I need for my project. For every function I need, there is an example in this book for me to understand. Actually, I learn ODBC from this book
Rating: 
Summary: WARNING: Book does not contain the ODBC SQL Grammar
Review: I bought the book based on the Amazon description of it being "complete" and "designed to provide you with everything you need" and was disappointed to find that it does not contain the ODBC SQL grammar. So it is NOT complete. I could not even find any references in it to how to find the SQL Grammar. Without knowing the ODBC SQL grammar it would be hard to write an interoperable application (the point of ODBC after all) with only this book.The book, however, is excellent (5 stars), especially with the ODBC specification development history, but incomplete, and the Amazon blurbs(1 star) misleading.
Rating: 
Summary: Not enough code ex. for beginners, but good fundamentals
Review: I bought this book as an ODBC virgin. I had no clue what it did, but I knew I needed to know. This book is good in explaining the fundamentals of ODBC, but when it gets to the part of actually creating code to use ODBC, it falls well short. As a beginner, I need a lot of code to peruse, and I need it to be straightforward. What would have been good is if the author included snippets of C code in the pertaining sections that explained, for example, connecting to data sources, initializing environments, etc. However, no code was ever presented until he started enumerating each of the functions. This was not a smart place to put it. Not only that, but instead of using straightforward C code directly in the example, he all of a sudden wraps ODBC calls in a C++ class, which just serves to muddy the overall picture. It would have been best to leave the ODBC code in straight "C", to make it easier for the beginners to fully understand what was going on.
Rating:
Summary: Quick and good start for beginners...
Review: I'm a new learner of ODBC. Through the instruction of this book, I just spent one week implementing a ODBC software component for my job. So I take this opportunity to honestly thank the author for his execellent book.
Rating:
Summary: This book is the only reference you'll ever need-About time!
Review: I've spent tons of time wading through ODBC specifications, online help, doc after doc after doc looking for the information that this book provides all in one reference. Oh, the time I would have saved if this had existed when I started developing ODBC drivers! The excellent cross-reference between ODBC Spec levels is SO useful. Having great code examples FOR EACH API is wonderful. From the high-level explanation of ODBC key concepts all the way to the last detailed SQLState, Roger Sanders has provided us with a diamond in the rough of ODBC books... Thanks!
Rating:
Summary: Good book with a lot of useful samples
Review: The book is good. There are many samples that were coompiled and worked without extra changes. This book is a good addition to ODBC SDK.
Rating:
Summary: Strictly a reference book.
Review: The text does not follow any tutorial standard or style. It is a series of essays followed by detailed examples and verbose documentation. Some thought should have gone into the presentation.
Rating: 
Summary: Written by a programmer for programmers !
Review: This 975+ page book is designed to provide you with everything you need to develop ODBC applications. The first six chapters provide in-depth information about ODBC (what it is, how it works, how ODBC applications are developed, etc.) and the remaining nine chapters provide detailed information about each ODBC API available -- along with a working C++ example that demonstrates how the API is used in an application program. Additionally, a graphic bar located at the begining of each API quickly identifes the versions of ODBC that support it (1.0, 2.0, 3.0, and 3.5) and the international standards that the API conforms to (X/Open and ISO/IEC 92). All example programs shown in the book are provided on an accompanying diskette and Appendix D walks you through the steps needed to configure ODBC, compile, and execute them.
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