the following certified drivers are available for dbexpress: borland interbase 7.5 (should also work but is not certified with interbase 7.1, 7.0 and 6.5), oracle 10g (should also work with oracle 9.2.0 and 9.1.0), ibm db2 udb 8.x (should also work with 7.x), microsoft sql server 2000, ibm informix 9.x, sql anywhere 9 (should also work with asa 8), mysql 4.0.x, and sybase 12.5.
bde
the borland database engine (bde) - for vcl or vcl for .net applications - supports local dbase and paradox tables. the bde for .net has been enhanced with the ability to dynamically load the bde dlls, without the need to specify the path. it also offers increased blob performance, and includes some of the bde components for .net that were not available before, namely tupdatesql, tnestedtable, and tstoredproc.
ibx
interbase express (ibx) offers direct connectivity to interbase for vcl as well as vcl for .net applications.
2.5 web
delphi 2005 contains a number of web development enhancements both for vcl (for win32 and .net) and asp.net.
web deployment manager
delphi 2005 now contains a special web deployment manager, which can be used for asp.net web form and asp.net web service projects, as well as intraweb for both vcl and vcl for .net. the web deployment manager can be used to connect to either a directory (local or on a network) or an ftp target. the deployment view will show both the local files (from the project directory) and the remote files (from the directory or ftp location), and gives you the option to deploy the entire project in one click. you can also compare files, remove files, etc. deployment settings are stored with your project, so you can always redeploy with your specific settings at a later time. this is very powerful and ideal for fast deployment.
apart from supporting asp.net and intraweb projects, the web deployment manager can be extended to support other project types as well.
db web controls
the db web controls can be used to build powerful data-driven asp.net web form applications. delphi 2005 introduces a number of new db web controls, including dbwebaggregatecontrol, dbwebsound, dbwebvideo, and dbwebnavigationextender.
the dbwebaggregatecontrol can be used to display aggregate values of columns from a dataset. available aggregate operations include avg, count, min, max, and sum.
the dbwebsound and dbwebvideo controls are included to support audio and video formats, connecting through a dbwebdatasource to fields from a dataset or from a url.
