nanodbc

Why nanodbc exists

nanodbc is a small C++ wrapper for the native C ODBC API. The README states the goal directly: the native C API for working with ODBC is exorbitantly verbose, ridiculously complicated, and fantastically brittle, and nanodbc addresses those frustrations by making common tasks easy with concise and simple code. The philosophy section says the latest C++ standards and best practices are enthusiastically incorporated to keep the library future-proof, while semantic versioning and release notes clarify the required C++ features for each version so users on older toolchains know what they can adopt. A design decision section explains that all complex objects follow the pimpl idiom, which stands for pointer to implementation, to separate interface from implementation, give value semantics, and keep a clean nanodbc.h header that includes only standard C++ headers. The project wraps ODBC rather than replacing it, and the author notes that major features beyond what ODBC already supports are out of scope, which is where the nano part of the name matters. The library is meant to be as minimal as possible, with no dependencies beyond standard C++ and typical ODBC headers and libraries, and the author says they have personally never needed to write supporting ODBC code when using it.

Building and testing the library

The README gives detailed build guidance. Each release line sets a minimum C++ standard, with versions below 2.12 requiring C++11 and versions 2.12 and newer requiring C++14, and continuous integration builds every supported compiler against C++14, C++17, and C++20. The library is small enough to drag and drop the header and implementation files into a project, but CMake files are provided to build a library object or the included tests, with support for out-of-source builds. Tests use the Catch2 framework, vendored under test and catch as an amalgamated distribution so they build without network access, and they need unixODBC or iODBC installed and discoverable by CMake. The tests connect to a SQLite database through a registered driver, and the README shows the exact odbcinst.ini entry for SQLite3 on OS X and other systems. A typical workflow creates a build directory, runs cmake, then make nanodbc to build the library, make tests to build tests, and make test to run them, with make install to place nanodbc.h and the library on the system. The library is static unless BUILD_SHARED_LIBS is set, and many boolean build options exist, such as disabling async features or enabling Unicode support. The README's build options table also covers Boost based Unicode conversion, an SQL_NO_DATA workaround, and libcxx forcing, giving a maintainer fine control over behavior across platforms and compilers.

Unicode, ABI, and contribution notes

The README spends unusual care on Unicode and ABI compatibility, which matters because ODBC wide strings behave differently across platforms. Under Windows, wchar_t and SQLWCHAR are both two bytes, but on Unix wchar_t is four bytes, and unixODBC uses two-byte SQLWCHAR while iODBC uses four-byte, creating incompatible application and driver ABIs. When building against iODBC with Unicode enabled, nanodbc string becomes std::u32string, while in all other cases it becomes std::u16string, and the README recommends unixODBC and suggests disabling Unicode on iODBC to avoid wchar_t issues. A separate note on non-ASCII text explains that a narrow build passes text as bytes in the client character set, so a character the set cannot represent is lost, and that on Linux with unixODBC that set is normally UTF-8 while on Windows it is the system ANSI codepage, so building with Unicode enabled exchanges UTF-16 with the driver instead. Statement text is called the more fragile of the two because, unlike a bound parameter, it reaches the driver with no length or type, so the advice is to bind values as parameters. Contribution rules require clang-format with a named major version, and new pull requests must include corresponding tests, with the SQLite and utility tests noted as the fastest local check.

Editorial conclusion

nanodbc is released under the MIT license, is written in C++, and was last updated on GitHub on 2026-08-24 with 385 stars recorded at the time of the snapshot.