Database Independent Abstraction Layer for C: libdbi Programmer's Guide
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# 3.2. Generic Example Program

The following listing shows how to establish a connection to a MySQL database server and retrieve the results of a SQL query. Only a small number of functions offered by libdbi are shown here. For a more extensive example check out the test program `tests/test_dbi.c` in the libdbi-drivers source tarball.

    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <dbi/dbi.h>

    int main() {
        dbi_conn conn;
        dbi_result result;
        dbi_inst instance;

        double threshold = 4.333333;
        unsigned int idnumber;
        const char *fullname;

        dbi_initialize_r(NULL, &instance);
        conn = dbi_conn_new_r("mysql", instance);

        dbi_conn_set_option(conn, "host", "localhost");
        dbi_conn_set_option(conn, "username", "your_name");
        dbi_conn_set_option(conn, "password", "your_password");
        dbi_conn_set_option(conn, "dbname", "your_dbname");
        dbi_conn_set_option(conn, "encoding", "UTF-8");

        if (dbi_conn_connect(conn) < 0) {
          printf("Could not connect. Please check the option settings\n");
        }
        else {
          result = dbi_conn_queryf(conn, "SELECT id, name FROM coders "
                                      "WHERE hours_of_sleep > %0.2f", threshold);

          if (result) {
    	while (dbi_result_next_row(result)) {
    	  idnumber = dbi_result_get_uint(result, "id");
    	  fullname = dbi_result_get_string(result, "name");
    	  printf("%i. %s\n", idnumber, fullname);
    	}
    	dbi_result_free(result);
          }
          dbi_conn_close(conn);
        }

        dbi_shutdown_r(instance);

        return 0;
    }

Compile with: gcc -lm -ldl -ldbi -o foo foo.c

> Note: The `-ldl` option is not required on systems that implement the dynamic linking in their libc (like FreeBSD). You may also have to throw in something like `-I/usr/local/include` and `-L/usr/local/lib` to help gcc and ld find the libdbi headers and libraries.

Of course, a complete program should check for errors more thoroughly. This example keeps error-checking at a minimum for the sake of clarity. There are also other ways to retrieve data after a successful query. Keep reading on to see the rest.

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