MonetDB comes with JDBC and ODBC drivers and several programming language interface libraries. The JDBC, PHP, Perl, Ruby, Python and Node.js interfaces are native implementations and do not require installation of the MonetDB client/server code. The ODBC driver and setup library are available as a separate installer. The Mapi library is the lowest level C-interface to interacting with the server.
We rely on external documentation for the basics of the language bindings provided: PHP, Perl, Python, and the JDBC and ODBC APIs. Examples provided are used to illustrate their behavior in the context of MonetDB only.
The programming interface is based on a client-server architecture, where the client program connects to a server using a TCP/IP connection to exchange commands and receives answers. The underlying protocol uses plain UTF-8 data for ease of use and debugging. This leads to publicly visible information exchanged over a network, which may be undesirable. Therefore, a private and secure channel can be set up with the Secure Socket Layer functionality.
A deeper integration of MonetDB with R is available on the website of the MonetDB.R connector. If you are looking for information about the embedded R support in MonetDB, check this blog post.