[KLUG Members] Any ODBC Developers

[Adam Tauno Williams]

For my data access presentation
(ftp://kalamazoolinux.org/pub/pdf/dbaccess.pdf) I cover the the unixODBC
driver manager which has a pretty nifty tab for reporting statistics.
It in fact reports four:

processes (pids)
environments
statements
descriptors

I understand what processes are (the processes with an ODBC connection)
and statements (currently executing statements, backend side).  But what
"environment" and "descriptors" are illude me.  I've looked at the API
docs on MSN, and well,  I just don't get it.

Can anyone help a poor non-developer nit wit with what these terms mean?