[sdeming]

The problem with C++ and connecting to a database is that there isn't a really good free database API available. Good being the key word.

Which platform are you targetting? If windows, then I may be able to help you a bit with using the CLI (ODBC Call Level Interface) which will allow you to talk to any database you have an ODBC driver for. Using CLI directly is a very painful experience, but if you were to build your own DB class library wrapping the CLI you would benefit a great deal in experience gained and the many lessons you'll learn doing this. I know, because I recently did such a thing and built nearly a mirror image of the Java JDBC API in C++, using CLI.

Of course, if you are using Windows with VS.NET then you can use of the CLR framework which provides just about everything you can imagine, from talking to a database to to building a full featured web application. The .NET framework is kind of like the Java API, except you don't have to use Java.