Oracle Database Programming Interface for C (ODPI-C) is a new open source library of C code that simplifies the use of common OCI features for Oracle Database drivers and user applications.
ODPI-C is a thin layer on top of OCI and requires Oracle client libraries.
ODPI-C's goal is to expose common OCI functionality in a readily consumable way to the C or C++ developer. OCI's API is extremely flexible and is highly efficient, giving very fine-grained control to the developer for a wide range of use cases. ODPI-C is also flexible but is aimed primarily at language driver creators. These creators are programming within the confines of a scripting language's type system and semantics. The languages often expose simplified data access to users through cross-platform, 'common-denominator' APIs. Therefore ODPI-C provides easy to use functionality for common data access, while still providing the power of Oracle Database.
Of course ODPI-C isn't just restricted to drivers. ODPI-C is licensed under the Apache 2.0 and/or the Oracle UPL licenses, so the code can be resused in your own projects.