Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge User's Guide - Interfacing

Using the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge with other software

This section provides information about third-party programming languages and applications that are commonly used with the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge (OOB) to access remote data sources. There are tutorials on many of these applications and interfaces in the <InstallDir>/easysoft/oob/doc directory and these are updated on the Easysoft web site at http://www.easysoft.com/tech/main.phtml.

Chapter Guide

Introduction

Example programs

The Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge comes with several example programs which are installed into the examples subdirectory. The example programs are provided to help you get started writing applications that will load the OOB Client.

The C examples can be compiled and run like any C program, but for the others you may need to rebuild or reconfigure the application or interface with support for an ODBC driver manager.

Information for Windows developers

Some of the programming languages, tools and applications referred to in this section (and in the files supplied in the docs subdirectory) are available on Windows as well as on Unix platforms, and work equally well with the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge in both environments.

However, the Windows versions of these products are usually pre-built and so you are unlikely to need the information about building or configuring them with the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge.

Since most of the following information is more likely to be used by the Unix community, all references to directory paths are given in their Unix format, even though the information may also apply to Windows.

unixODBC

The Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge (OOB) does not require a driver manager at the client end although there are many advantages to using one:

The unixODBC driver manager is Open Source (LGPL) and was developed by Nick Gorham (an Easysoft developer). It is available as part of the unixODBC project being jointly developed by a number of people and headed by Nick Gorham.


REF

For more information on unixODBC, see http://www.unixodbc.org.


If you have multiple ODBC drivers you probably need a Driver Manager.

There are currently two driver managers available as Open Source for Unix, unixODBC (http://www.unixodbc.org) and iODBC. If you want or need to use a driver manager then Easysoft recommend the unixODBC driver manager. There are a number of reasons for this:

1.  The unixODBC project started by Peter Harvey is now maintained by Nick Gorham who is an Easysoft developer. This means there is much greater experience with unixODBC within Easysoft and we will be able to provide better support for OOB running under unixODBC. It also means that if you find a problem in unixODBC it is much easier for us to facilitate a fix.

2.  Easysoft test all their ODBC drivers with unixODBC and although they may work with iODBC it is more difficult for us to support it as we are less familiar with it.

3.  The unixODBC package contains much more than a driver manager. The aim of the unixODBC project is to provide all the ODBC functionality available on Windows for Unix operating systems. The unixODBC package may be built with the QT libraries to allow GUI configuration of DSNs and drivers. It also contains the GUI DataManager program which may be used to explore your ODBC data. OOB contains the code and a shared object which is used by unixODBC's GUI ODBCConfig utility to add/delete and configure OOB DSNs.

4.  The OOB installation for Unix can automatically install itself using the unixODBC installer program to run under unixODBC.

5.  The OOB installation can automatically configure a demo data source in unixODBC for OOB.

6.  Many (if not most) applications and interfaces know about unixODBC.

A Simple OOB Client in C

In The Demo Application, you ran a simple C program that connected through the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge.

Other small programs are provided in the examples directory, and documented in the file EXAMPLES.txt.

One of these is getdata, a simple C program that reads stdin for an SQL statement and passes it to a data source for execution.


NB

The syntax in this example serves as a guide for Unix platforms. Windows developers should refer to the manual for their chosen development platform.


Before you can use the program you must edit the call to SQLDriverConnect() to indicate a valid DSN.

You can then build the program by finding a suitable makefile in the examples subdirectory:

1.  Change to the examples directory by typing:

 cd<InstallDir>/easysoft/oob/examples

2.  Look for a makefile by typing:

 ls Make*

3.  Edit the makefile appropriate for your platform (e.g. Makefile.linux), removing the comment from the second line and making sure that the installation path is correct (for example, #INSTALLPATH=/usr/local might become INSTALLPATH=/opt/).

 Note that you should remove the "#", whether or not you change the directory name.

4.  Make the examples:

 make -f Makefile.linux

The getdata program, the source to the demo program, and the makefile are enough to show you how to create C programs that connect through the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge.

If you need more information, please refer to an ODBC Programmer's Manual.

Apache/PHP

Building Apache with PHP and the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge allows your web content to be closely integrated with a database running on a machine separate from your web server.

This is particularly useful for offices that have databases that would benefit from up-to-date information from a web server located on a different machine.

For information about building Apache and PHP with the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge and details of which versions of Apache and PHP the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge has been proven to work with, please refer to the Apache/PHP document Apache_PHP.txt in <InstallDir>/easysoft/oob/doc.

Also check the INSTALL files in the Apache and PHP distributions, because they may provide more up-to-date information specific to Apache and PHP.


REF

Apache can be found at http://www.apache.org and PHP at http://www.php.net.


If you want to access multiple ODBC drivers from PHP the best method is to install the unixODBC driver manager and then tell the unixODBC driver manager about your ODBC drivers.

You can build PHP with an ODBC driver and other database drivers such as Oracle® or MySQL.

Applixware

Applixware Office is a multi-platform suite of applications.

For information about using Applixware Office with the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge, and details of which versions of Applixware Office the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge has been tested with, please refer to the Applixware document Applixware.txt in <InstallDir>/easysoft/oob/doc.


REF

For information about Applixware Office, visit http://www.vistasource.com or http://www.applix.com.


Lotus Notes / Domino

Lotus Notes combines e-mail, calendar management, group scheduling, contact and task management in one client application. Lotus Domino turns Lotus Notes into an application and messaging server.

For information about using Lotus Notes / Domino with the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge, and details of which versions of Lotus Notes / Domino the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge has been tested with, please refer to the Lotus Notes / Domino document LotusNotesDomino.txt in <InstallDir>/easysoft/oob/doc.

mnoGoSearch (formerly UDMSearch)

mnoGoSearch is a web site indexing tool and search engine you can install on your web site. Both tools use a relational database backend to store the metadata and execute searches.

Using mnoGoSearch with the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge allows you to store the mnoGoSearch index information in a remote ODBC data source (e.g. running mnoGoSearch on your Unix web server, but storing the indexed web site information in your Microsoft SQLServer database).

For information about using mnoGoSearch with the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge, and details of which versions of mnoGoSearch the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge has been tested with, please refer to the mnoGoSearch documentmnoGoSearch.txtin <InstallDir>/easysoft/oob/doc.

Also check the INSTALL file in the mnoGoSearch distributions because it provides instructions for building mnoGoSearch with the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge.


REF

The official home page for mnoGoSearch with links to the latest downloads, language dictionaries and documentation is at http://search.mnogo.ru.


mxODBC

mxODBC is a database API for the Python scripting language which provides an interface to ODBC data sources.

For information about running mxODBC with the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge, and details of which versions of mxODBC the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge has been tested with, please refer to the mxODBC document mxODBC.txt in <InstallDir>/easysoft/oob/doc.

When building mxODBC, there is a configuration section specifically for the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge which makes the build very straightforward.


REF

mxODBC and instructions for building it are available at http://www.egenix.com/products/python/mxODBC/.


OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org is the open source project through which Sun Microsystems has released the technology for the StarOffice Productivity Suite. OpenOffice.org can use ODBC data sources in its various applications to link to external data.

For information about using OpenOffice.org with the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge, and details of which versions of OpenOffice.org the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge has been tested with, please refer to the OpenOffice.org document OpenOffice.org.txt in <InstallDir>/easysoft/oob/doc.


REF

For product information about OpenOffice.org, visit http://www.openoffice.org/product


Perl DBI DBD::ODBC

DBI is the database interface module for Perl.

When DBD::ODBC (the ODBC database driver for Perl DBI) is built with an ODBC driver manager it enables access to ODBC drivers and when using the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge, it provides access to ODBC data sources on other machines.

For information about building Perl DBI with the DBD:ODBC module and the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge, and details of which versions of Perl DBI the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge has been proven to work with, please refer to the Perl document Perl_DBI_DBD_ODBC.txt in <InstallDir>/easysoft/oob/doc.

There are also some Perl examples in the <InstallDir>/easysoft/oob/examples directory.


REF

The Perl home page is at http://www.perl.com.

Information about DBI (the database interface module for Perl) can be found at http://dbi.perl.org.

Links to other useful sites can be found in the Perl document Perl_DBI_DBD_ODBC.txtwithin <InstallDir>/easysoft/oob/doc.

Various Perl tutorials are installed in the <InstallDir>/easysoft/oob/doc/perl_tutorials directory. The Perl tutorials are updated on the Easysoft web site.


Rexx/SQL

Rexx/SQL provides Rexx programmers with a consistent, simple and powerful interface to SQL databases.

For information about using Rexx/SQL with the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge, and details of which versions of Rexx/SQL the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge has been tested with, please refer to the Rexx/SQL document Rexx_SQL.txt in <InstallDir>/easysoft/oob/doc. Also check the INSTALL files in the Rexx/SQL and Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge distributions because they may provide more up-to-date information.


REF

The Rexx/SQL home page at http://www.lightlink.com/hesslingcontains download links, documentation, mailing list instructions and links to other Rexx resources.

The Rexx/SQL anonymous FTP site is mirrored in the US at ftp://ftp.lightlink.com/pub/hessling/REXXSQL.


You will need a Rexx interpreter to run the Rexx/SQL test code and your Rexx programs using Rexx/SQL.

The Rexx interpreter called Regina was used by Easysoft during the testing of the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge with Rexx/SQL and is available at ftp://ftp.lightlink.com/pub/hessling/Regina.

You may use ./configure (help in Rexx/SQL) to see which Rexx interpreters are supported.

Please ensure that you install a Rexx interpreter before attempting to build Rexx/SQL.

Snort

Snort is an open source network intrusion detection system. Snort alerts and logs may be written to a database by using the database plugin. If snort is built against the unixODBC driver manager and the ODBC-ODBC Bridge client is installed, snort can then log to remote ODBC data sources.

For information about using Snort with the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge, and details of which versions of Snort the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge has been tested with, please refer to the Snort document snort.txt in <InstallDir>/easysoft/oob/doc.

SQLPlus_hsODBC

hsODBC (Heterogeneous Services) allows an Oracle® listener to connect to an ODBC driver.

Once you have configured hsODBC to use the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge, you can use SQLPlus to connect to any remote database for which you have an ODBC driver (e.g. Microsoft SQL Server).

For information about running hsODBC with the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge and details of which versions of hsODBC the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge has been tested with, please refer to the hsODBC document SQLPlus_hsODBC.txt in <InstallDir>/easysoft/oob/doc.

StarOffice

StarOffice is a multi-platform suite of applications.

For information about using StarOffice with the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge, and details of which versions of StarOffice the Easysoft ODBC-ODBC Bridge has been tested with, please refer to the StarOffice document StarOffice.txt in <InstallDir>/easysoft/oob/doc.


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