# Driver (software)

> Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Driver_(software)
> Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Driver_(software).md
> Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver_(software)
> Source revision: 1290623371
> License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

{{Short description|Programming interface}}
{{About|non hardware software drivers|hardware device drivers|Device driver}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2018}}
A '''driver''' in software provides a programming interface to control and manage specific lower-level interfaces that are often linked to a specific type of hardware, or other low-level service. In the case of hardware, the specific subclass of drivers controlling physical or virtual hardware devices are known as device drivers.<ref name="MSaboutDrivers">{{cite web|title=What is a Driver?|access-date=5 May 2025 |date=27 September 2024|url=https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/gettingstarted/what-is-a-driver-|website=Microsoft}}</ref>

==Example==
A [client](/source/Client_(computing)) [library](/source/Library_(computing)) for connecting to a database is often known as a driver, for example, the [MySQL](/source/MySQL) native driver for [PHP](/source/PHP).<ref name="PHPnativeMYSQL">{{cite web|title=MySQL native driver for PHP - mysqlnd|url=https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/php-mysqlnd/|access-date=2 September 2018|website=MySQL}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

Category:Computing terminology
Category:Application programming interfaces
Category:Computer libraries

{{Software-type-stub}}

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Driver (software)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver_(software)) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver_(software)?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.