Database Connectors

To access, retrieve, and store data, Uniface provides database connectors that translate Uniface I/O requests into the target database's data definition and manipulation languages.

Uniface provides connectors for most industry-recognized relational database systems, such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server, as well as for record-based systems, and for LDAP directory servers. It also provides an API so that you can create your own connector.

A database connector is responsible for:

• Translating Uniface I/O requests into the data definition language (DDL) or data manipulation language (DML) that the database system uses. For relational database systems, the DML is SQL.

• Mapping Uniface data types to the data types of its target database. In Uniface the database data types are known as storage formats, and the mapping from Uniface data type to storage format is called a packing code.

• Generating stored procedures for databases that support them, and calling them where applicable.

The use of connectors to support I/O interaction with DBMSs enables a Uniface application to be independent of the databases in use. Each Uniface database entity has a property that determines its path to a database connector. This can be the default database connector set during installation, or any other available connector. When deploying the application, you can use path assignments to choose a different database and connector for that entity.