Tabular Data Stream

During the early development of Sybase SQL Server, the developers at Sybase perceived the lack of a commonly accepted application level protocol to transfer data between a database server and its client. In order to encourage the use of its products, Sybase promoted the use of a flexible pair of libraries, called netlib and db-lib, to implement standard SQL. A further library was included in order to implement "Bulk Copy" called blk. While netlib's job is to ferry data between the two computers through the underlying network protocol, db-lib provides an API to the client program, and communicates with the server via netlib. db-lib sends to the server a structured stream of bytes meant for tables of data, hence a Tabular Data Stream. blk provides, like db-lib, an API to the client programs and communicates with the server via netlib.

In 1990 Sybase entered into a technology-sharing agreement with Microsoft which resulted in Microsoft marketing its own SQL Server — Microsoft SQL Server — based on Sybase's code. Microsoft kept the db-lib API and added ODBC. (Microsoft has since added additional APIs.) At about the same time, Sybase introduced a more powerful successor to db-lib, called ct-lib, and called the pair Open Client. db-lib, though officially deprecated, remains in widespread{{quantify|date=July 2017}} use.

The TDS protocol comes in several varieties, most of which had not been openly documented because they were regarded{{by whom|date=July 2017}} as proprietary technology. The exception was TDS 5.0, used exclusively by Sybase, for which documentation is available from Sybase.{{cite web | url = http://www.sybase.com/content/1040983/Sybase-tds38-102306.pdf | title = TDS 5.0 Functional Specification, Version 3.8 | accessdate = 2009-07-08}} This situation changed when Microsoft published the TDS specification in 2008,{{cite web | url = http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd304523.aspx | title = [MS-TDS]: Tabular Data Stream Protocol | accessdate = 2014-04-29}} as part of the Open Specification Promise.

The FreeTDS team has developed a free native-library implementation of the TDS protocol,{{cite book | title = SQL server security |author1= Chip Andrews |author2= David Litchfield |author3= Bill Grindlay | page = 260 | publisher = McGraw-Hill Professional | year = 2003 | isbn = 0-07-222515-7 }} licensed under the LGPL license. WireShark has a protocol decoder for TDS.[http://wiki.wireshark.org/Protocols/tds protocol/tds], Wireshark.org wiki

Oracle Corporation provides Oracle Net - software analogous to TDS.

{{cite web

|url= http://www.microsoft.com/rus/download.aspx?file=/SQL2008/white_papers/OracleSSIS.docx

|title= SQL Server Integration Services with Oracle Database 10g

|date= May 2008

|series= SQL Server Technical Article

|publisher= Microsoft

|page= 2

|access-date= 2017-07-20

|quote= Oracle Net is analogous to the SQL Server Tabular Data Stream (TDS) transport facility.

}}

• Transact-SQL

{{reflist}}

• [https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/windows_protocols/ms-tds/b46a581a-39de-4745-b076-ec4dbb7d13ec [MS-TDS]: Tabular Data Stream Protocol] specification, Microsoft
• [http://infocenter.sybase.com/help/index.jsp?topic=/com.sybase.infocenter.dc00384.0202/html/amcug/CIHGCIAH.htm What is TDS?], sybase.com
• [http://www.freetds.org/ FreeTDS]
• [https://github.com/rails-sqlserver/tiny_tds TinyTDS], Ruby bindings to FreeTDS.
• [http://jtds.sourceforge.net jTDS], a pure-Java JDBC driver for TDS databases
• [http://jbcp.sourceforge.net jBCP], an extension of jTDS to include BCP protocols
• [http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7318075.html United States Patent 7318075: Enhanced tabular data stream protocol], Microsoft
• [http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?WO=2008151016 Patent: TRANSPORTING TABLE VALUED PARAMETER OVER TABULAR DATA STREAM PROTOCOL], Microsoft
• [http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20090112889 Patent application: COMPRESSING NULL COLUMNS IN ROWS OF THE TABULAR DATA STREAM PROTOCOL], Microsoft
• [https://gitlab.com/wireshark/wireshark/-/wikis/Protocols/tds WireShark wiki: Protocol tds]

Category:Application layer protocols

Category:Database access protocols