explicitly-allocated-descriptors.md

title	description	author	ms.author	ms.date	ms.service	ms.subservice	ms.topic	helpviewer_keywords
Explicitly Allocated Descriptors	Explicitly Allocated Descriptors	David-Engel	davidengel	01/19/2017	sql	connectivity	conceptual	descriptors [ODBC], allocating and freeing explicitly allocated descriptors [ODBC] allocating and freeing descriptors [ODBC]

Explicitly Allocated Descriptors

An application can explicitly allocate an application descriptor on a connection at any time it is connected to the database. By specifying that descriptor handle as an attribute of a statement handle using SQLSetStmtAttr, the application directs the driver to use that descriptor in place of the corresponding implicitly allocated application descriptors. The application cannot specify alternate implementation descriptors.

An application can associate an explicitly allocated descriptor with more than one statement. Only when an application is actually connected to the database can a descriptor be an explicitly allocated descriptor. The application can free such a descriptor explicitly, or implicitly by freeing its connection.