ABL JDBC

In Progress by Marian Edu

Just got the ABL JDBC driver to the alpha stage, this is already usable to fetch Progress data through Progress Application Server using plain Progress ABL by Java based tools like Pentaho Report, Birt, Pentaho ETL (Kettle).

Why anyone will need this if there is already a JDBC driver for Progress database? Well, there are a number of issues that up until now restricted peoples to use JDBC to get to the Progress database from which I’ll name a few in no particular order:

  • no cross-database query possible, with ABL JDBC all connected databases shows as ‘schema’ and cross-database queries are made possible
  • SQL syntax knowledge needed, plain Progress ABL statements can be used now (everything that can pass-through query-prepare)
  • non-SQL friendly field/table names (many databases still have fields containing ‘-‘), this is a SQL restriction not part of JDBC so every field/table can be made available with ABL JDBC
  • improper ‘SQL width’ set for character fields, no issue with ABL JDBC

What next?

  • stored procedures, call ‘standard’ ABL procedures that supports input/output parameters and optionally return result set
  • insert/update/delete statements