Internet is a worldwide electronic media source for retrieving and sending information among various bases. The WWW (World Wide Web) enables electronic data devices to take advantages of the vast information provided by WWW. In the past, only the companies which spanned Local Area and Wide Area Networks (LAN's, WAN's) could access and exchange databases with each other. Now however, the Internet, a global network, provides companies accesses to databases from anywhere in the world.

Web database is a new way to publish information electronically. Because of this dynamic attribute, it provides flexibility. Therefore, commercial and informational databases can be edited, added or deleted in minimal time by filling out the requested forms. A typical Web database system has a Web browser as its user interface, a database server as its information storage, and a Web server connecting the Web browser (Figure 1.1). The Web software simplifies and standardizes data presentation, the user interface and the DBMS (database management system) which organizes and standardizes data retrieval and storage [11].

Figure 1. 1 A Web Database with Client-Side and Server-Side Extensions [11]

JDBC (Java Database Connectivity) is a standard Java API for executing SQL statements [19]. It consists of a set of classes and interfaces written in the Java programming language. JDBC provides a standard for tool/database developers and makes it possible to write database applications by using a pure Java API. Under the implementation of JDBC, programmers can simply use SQL statements to make comments to any virtually related databases [19]. In other words, programmers do not need to write a particular program to access a Sybase database or any another databases. JDBC is the extension derived from Java. For example, a web page presents obtained information from a remote database through executing applet, which runs Java and the JDBC API.

Microsoft Internet Database Connector (IDC) is designed primarily for programmers familiar with SQL and with relatively little experience with HTML [22]. It offers a straightforward, high-performance mechanism for integrating data contained into an HTML page. Each IDC consists of two documents. One document queries information, and the other displays the referred data in a standard HTML file through special syntax. Thus, when users are requesting databases, the IDC documents will cooperate with each other. The query processes with the SQL Server and the special HTML page displays the final results.

There are some applications that support the SQL statements embedded in HTML- documents such as Web Base and Cold Fusion.

• Web Base is a Web server that interacts with an ODBC database. It uses SQL statements embedded in HTML documents and comes with a macro language that supports conditionals and loops. Web Base allows any browsers to search a database as easy as it uses hypertext in a document [30].
• Cold Fusion is a hybrid CGI product that lets users connect Web pages to ODBC databases without writing CGI scripts. Users can do searches by freely mixing DBML tags (DataBase Markup Language) with HTML documents in a standard Web template [3]. Cold Fusion consists of two programs: a small, executable CGI and a Windows NT System Service loading the HTML/DBML template and interacting with the database.

Many server extension programs use an architecture that includes an ODBC layer (Figure 1.2). ODBC is an API that provides a uniform way of calling related databases. Since it works with many different database products, it is a natural choice for developers of server extension programs [11]. The presence of an ODBC layer also means that if a user changes the database, the templates and ODBC SQL statements can continue to work without modification.

Figure 1. 2 A Web database application with ODBC [11]