Connecting to Progress OpenEdge

Questions and answers regarding general SQL and backend databases

Connecting to Progress OpenEdge

Postby guiproject » Fri Jun 22, 2018 4:42 am

We're looking at Servoy as a means to create a new front end to our Progress OpenEdge application. I had a demo with Jan at the ProgressNext conference this year, and he said there are three ways to connect to Progress data: through REST, through ABL, or direct to the database. I've only done a little playing, but so far I can't seem to figure out how to do any of these.

Environment:
My laptop / development environment is Windows 10 64-bit.
I am using OpenEdge 11.7.3 with PAS. I have the SQL/JDBC driver installed.
I have Servoy 8.3.0.3203

I'll admit I haven't done a thorough read of the Servoy documentation; I've no doubt the answers are in there. But before I invest a lot of time in learning the product, I would like to see it in action and play around a bit. Searching the forums and docs for connections to OpenEdge leads me to fairly old threads which refer to OpenEdge jar files that I don't have on my system (such as jdbc.jar, base.jar, and util.jar)

I suspect I am missing something obvious, and I would appreciate any pointers as to the right places to read. If there is any cookbook-style example, that would be great! I have an opportunity to show off our work this weekend, and I am hoping to show a bit of Servoy if I can....

Thanks,

Phil
guiproject
 
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Jun 22, 2018 4:27 am

Re: Connecting to Progress OpenEdge

Postby guiproject » Sun Jun 24, 2018 12:51 am

OK -- so it wasn't quite obvious. Tuan at Servoy was good enough to step me through this, and a few other things. (Thanks, Tuan!) Here's what I learned. It's a bit terse, but I hope someone else finds this helpful. Normally I would include annotated images with this kind of doc, but I'm on deadline and I need to get back to work. :wink:

How to set up a JDBC connection to Progress DB

(1) Ensure that you have the "SQL Client Access pro"duct installed on your PC. This is the free ODBC/JDBC driver that Progress supplies. You might have to contact your sales rep to get it. (There is also a more powerful JDBC driver from Progress -- created by DataDirect -- but that's not free.) There are docs in the Progress KnowledgeBase describing how to set this driver up, which I won't reproduce here. I will simply note that you have to start the Progress database server with network access enabled (proserve .... -S <port#> .....)

(2) Start Servoy. On the left, under Resources, right-click on Database Servers. Then select "Connect to existing database" and "Empty". (I have only one Progress entry on the list: "Progress ABL". This is not what you need for JDBC access. The ABL connection requires a third-party driver, and it apparently allows you to use ABL code as a data source. Cool! But not JDBC. If you see another Progress entry, like "Progress JDBC" on this list, then you can probably use that and ignore the rest of these instructions.)

(3) Enter the Server Name you want to use, and your username/password. Do not enter a URL. [ Progress note: If you have no users defined in your database, then Progress defaults to granting full SQL permissions to the user that created the DB. If you do have users defined in your database, then you have to grant SQL permissions to them. The Progress KB can point you to more information about this. ]

(4) Click on "Show advanced server settings", which on my system shows up just below the messages telling you to download a driver. Enter the following:

URL: jdbc:datadirect:openedge://<host>:<port#>;databaseName=<yourDatabase>
for instance: jdbc:datadirect:openedge://localhost:42000;databaseName=sports2000

Driver: from the dropdown list, select
com.ddtek.jdbc.openedge.OpenEdgeDriver

Next to Schema, enter
PUB

The rest of this page can remain at default values, or you can tweak things to suit. Try the "Test Connection" button; with luck, you now how a working JDBC connection to Progress.

On the left, under Resources / Database Servers, you should now see your connection. If you click on the arrow to open it up, you should see your tables. Double-clicking one will show you the schema.

------------

Now, to test it. I learned the following from the "Servoy in 5 Minutes video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xYLTfDQJLw" video -- constantly pausing and peering at the screen to see what was being clicked on. There's a lot of useful "Getting Started" stuff there, if you have the patience to extract it.

  • Right-click on "All Solutions", create a new solution, and give it a name. You can accept the default values.
  • Right-click on "Forms" under your new solution, and create a new form.
  • Give the form a name.
  • Click on the three dots to the right of the DataSource field, and in the drop-down list find your newly created datasource. Pick one of the tables from the DB. Click on Next.
  • You should see list of fields. Double-click on two or three fields to add them to the form. Click on OK.
  • On the top of the screen, just under the menu, are some icons. The fourth from the left (at least on my system) is a little rocket ship which launches the NG client. Double-click on that. You should see a simple page with a vertical slider, allowing you to look at your data.

Good luck to all.
guiproject
 
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Joined: Fri Jun 22, 2018 4:27 am


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