ASA Getting Started
The Architecture of Database Applications
Application programming interfaces
Each interface library communicates with the database server using a communication protocol. Adaptive Server Anywhere supports two communication protocols, Tabular Data Stream (TDS) and Command Sequence. These protocols are internal, and for most purposes it does not matter which one you are using. Your choice of development environment will be governed by your available tools.
The major differences you will see are upon connecting to the database. The Command Sequence applications and TDS applications use different methods to identify a database and database server, and so connection dialogs are different.
TDS This protocol is used by Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise, Open Client applications, and Java applications that use the jConnect JDBC driver connect using TDS.
Command Sequence This protocol is used by Adaptive Server Anywhere, Adaptive Server IQ, and is used by embedded SQL, ODBC, and OLE DB applications.