Editing Open Database Connectivity (section)

===Driver Manager===
Device drivers are normally enumerated, set up and managed by a separate Manager layer, which may provide additional functionality. For instance, printing systems often include functionality to provide [[spooling]] functionality on top of the drivers, providing print spooling for any supported printer.

In ODBC the Driver Manager (DM) provides these features.<ref>{{cite web |last=Sybase |title=Introduction to ODBC |url=http://infocenter.sybase.com/help/index.jsp?topic=/com.sybase.help.sdk_12.5.1.aseodbc/html/aseodbc/aseodbc5.htm |work=infocenter.sybase.com |publisher=Sybase |access-date=8 October 2011 }}</ref> The DM can enumerate the installed drivers and present this as a list, often in a GUI-based form.

But more important to the operation of the ODBC system is the DM's concept of a ''Data Source Name'' (DSN). DSNs collect additional information needed to connect to a ''specific'' data source, versus the DBMS itself. For instance, the same [[MySQL]] driver can be used to connect to any MySQL server, but the connection information to connect to a local private server is different from the information needed to connect to an internet-hosted public server. The DSN stores this information in a standardized format, and the DM provides this to the driver during connection requests. The DM also includes functionality to present a list of DSNs using human readable names, and to select them at run-time to connect to different resources.

The DM also includes the ability to save partially complete DSN's, with code and logic to ask the user for any missing information at runtime. For instance, a DSN can be created without a required password. When an ODBC application attempts to connect to the DBMS using this DSN, the system will pause and ask the user to provide the password before continuing. This frees the application developer from having to create this sort of code, as well as having to know which questions to ask. All of this is included in the driver and the DSNs.