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In this article Barry Mavin, CEO and Chief Software Architect for Recital provides details on how the Recital Database Server can be used to provide a solution for Universal Data Integration.

Overview

The Recital Database Server handles universal cross-platform data access to a wide range of data sources. The database server natively handles full remote SQL data access to Recital, Visual FoxPro, FoxPro, FoxBASE, Clipper and older dBase data. Using Bridges, it handles full remote SQL data access to C-ISAM and OpenVMS RMS. Using gateway connections, it handles full remote SQL data access to Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, server-side ODBC, server-side JDBC and server-side OLE DB data sources. With its ability to access data using server-side ODBC, JDBC and OLE DB drivers from clients on all supported operating systems (Windows, Linux, Unix, OpenVMS), the Recital Database Server is an ideal Data Integration Solution for applications of all sizes and complexity.

Universal Data Integration Solutions

There are several ways in which data may be accessed by the Database Server.

Table 1:

Client Universal Data Access solutions for accessing local or remote data.


Client Solution
Recital Use remote gateway connections
Visual FoxPro Use the Universal ODBC Driver
Java (all platforms) Use the Universal JDBC Driver
.NET Framework Use the Universal .NET Data Provider
Microsoft Office Use the Universal ODBC Driver
Windows Mobile Use the Universal Compact Framework .NET Data Provider
PHP on Linux Use the Universal ODBC Driver for Linux
Mono on Linux Use the Universal .NET Data Provider
Others If the data source you want to access is not in the list above, then you can use a remote ODBC, JDBC or OLE DB gateway.
You can find examples of connection strings for most ODBC and OLE DB data sources by clicking here.

Table 2:

Windows Server Universal Data Access solutions accessible from any remote client running on Windows, Linux, Unix or OpenVMS:


Data Source Solution
Recital Native support (See table 1)
Visual FoxPro Native support (See table 1)
FoxPro Native support (See table 1)
FoxBASE Native support (See table 1)
Clipper Native support (See table 1)
dBase Native support (See table 1)
C-ISAM Use a bridge (See table 1)
Access Use a gateway connection
gateway="oledb:Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=\somepath\mydb.mdb;User Id=admin;Password=;"
Exchange Use a gateway connection
gateway="oledb:Provider=ExOLEDB.DataSource;Data Source=http://servername/publicstore"
Excel Use a gateway connection
gateway="oledb:Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=C:\MyExcel.xls;"
Oracle Use a gateway connection
gateway="oledb:Provider=msdaora;Data Source=TheOracleDB;User Id=xxxxx;Password=xxxxx;"
SQL Server Use a gateway connection
gateway="oledb:Provider=sqloledb;Data Source=Aron1;Initial Catalog=pubs;User Id=sa;Password=asdasd;"
MySQL Use a gateway connection
gateway="oledb:Provider=MySQLProv;Data Source=mydb;User Id=xxxxx;Password=xxxxx;"
IBM DB2 Use a gateway connection
gateway="oledb:Provider=DB2OLEDB;Network Transport Library=TCPIP;Network Address=XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX;Initial Catalog=MyCtlg;Package Collection=MyPkgCol;Default Schema=Schema;User ID=MyUser;Password=MyPW"
Sybase ASA Use a gateway connection
gateway="oledb:Provider=ASAProv;Data source=myASA"
Sybase ASE Use a gateway connection
gateway="oledb:Provider=Sybase.ASEOLEDBProvider;Srvr=myASEserver,5000;Catalog=myDBname;User Id=username;Password=password"
IBM Informix Use a gateway connection
gateway="oledb:Provider=Ifxoledbc.2;password=myPw;User ID=myUser;Data Source=dbName@serverName;Persist Security Info=true"
Ingres Use a gateway connection
gateway="odbc:dsn=data_source_name"
Firebird Use a gateway connection
gateway="odbc:dsn=data_source_name"
IBM AS400 iSeries Use a gateway connection
gateway="oledb:PROVIDER=IBMDA400; DATA SOURCE=MY_SYSTEM_NAME;USER ID=myUserName;PASSWORD=myPwd"
Interbase Use a gateway connection
gateway="oledb:provider=sibprovider;location=localhost:;data source=c:\databases\gdbs\mygdb.gdb;user id=xxxxx;password=xxxxx"
Others

If the data source you want to access is not in the list above, then you can use server-side ODBC, JDBC or OLE DB.
You can find examples of connection strings for most ODBC and OLE DB data sources by clicking here.
Full details on using server-side JDBC drivers can be found here.
Full details on using server-side ODBC drivers can be found here.
Full details on using server-side OLE DB drivers can be found here.


Table 3:

Linux and Unix Server Universal Data Access solutions accessible from any remote client running on Windows, Linux, Unix or OpenVMS:


Data Source Solution
Recital Native support (See table 1)
Visual FoxPro Native support (See table 1)
FoxPro Native support (See table 1)
FoxBASE Native support (See table 1)
Clipper Native support (See table 1)
dBase Native support (See table 1)
C-ISAM Use a bridge (See table 1)
Oracle Use a gateway connection
gateway="oracle:Connection_String"
MySQL Use a gateway connection
gateway="mysql:Connection_String"
IBM DB2 Use a gateway connection
gateway="db2:Connection_String"
PostgreSQL Use a gateway connection
gateway="postgres:Connection_String"
Others

If the data source you want to access is not in the list above, then you can use a server-side JDBC driver.
Full details on using server-side JDBC drivers can be found here.


Table 4:

OpenVMS Server Universal Data Access solutions accessible from any remote client running on Windows, Linux, Unix or OpenVMS:


Data Source Solution
Recital Native support (See table 1)
Visual FoxPro Native support (See table 1)
FoxPro Native support (See table 1)
FoxBASE Native support (See table 1)
Clipper Native support (See table 1)
dBase Native support (See table 1)
RMS Use a bridge (See table 1)
Others

If the data source you want to access is not in the list above, then you can use a server-side JDBC driver.

Supported Data Sources

Native Data Access

The Recital Database Server has native built-in support for the following data sources:

  • Recital
  • Visual FoxPro
  • FoxPro
  • FoxBASE
  • Clipper
  • dBase

You can setup tables to work with using the Database Administration Tool in Recital Enterprise Studio.

Bridges

Using Bridges, you can access the following data sources as if they were standard Recital/FoxPro tables:

  • CISAM
  • OpenVMS RMS

You can setup bridges using the Database Administration Tool in Recital Enterprise Studio.

Gateways/Connections

Using Gateways, you can transparently access the following local or remote data sources:

  • Recital
  • Oracle
  • ODBC (Server-side ODBC data sources)
  • JDBC (Server-side JDBC data sources)
  • OLEDB Use this to connect to SQL Server and other Windows OLE DB data sources)
  • MySQL
  • PostgreSQL

Remote Data Object functions

Recital 10 includes a complete and robust set of data source independent functions for accession MySQL, Oracle, DB2 and Postgres. This article explains how to use them.

Client Data Access drivers

Included with the Recital Database Server are three Client drivers. These Client drivers can access any data sources supported by the Recital Database Server. They are not restricted to accessing only Recital data. They can be used to access server-side ODBC, JDBC and OLE DB data sources also.

Recital Universal .NET Data Provider

Use this client driver when building .NET applications with Visual Studio .NET. A data provider in the .NET Framework serves as a bridge between an application and a data source. A data provider is used to retrieve data from a data source and to reconcile changes to that data back to the data source.

Key features of the Recital Universal .NET Data Provider:

  • Fully Internet enabled
    The Recital Universal .NET Data Provider works across the internet providing access to a wide range of data sources located on remote servers running Windows, Linux, Unix and OpenVMS.
  • SQL Server compatible
    The Recital Universal .NET Data Provider is plug compatible with the .NET Framework SQL Server Data Provider.
  • Cross-platform Data Integration
    Using the Recital Universal .NET Data Provider, you can connect to remote Windows, Linux, Unix or OpenVMS servers and access any data source supported by the Recital Database Server.
  • Managed code
    The Recital Universal .NET Data Adaptor written in C# is 100% .NET Framework managed code.
  • Runs on Windows Mobile
    The Recital Universal .NET Data Adaptor runs under the .NET Compact Framework on Windows Mobile.
Recital Universal JDBC Driver

The JDBC API is the industry standard for database-independent connectivity between the Java programming language and a wide range of databases. The JDBC API provides a call-level API for SQL-based database access. JDBC technology allows you to use the Java programming language to exploit "Write Once, Run Anywhere" capabilities for applications that require access to enterprise data.

Key features of the Recital Universal JDBC Driver:

  • Fully Internet enabled
    The Recital Universal JDBC driver works across the internet providing access to a wide range of data sources located on remote servers running Windows, Linux, Unix and OpenVMS.
  • JDBC 3.0 API
    The Recital Universal JDBC driver supports the JDBC 3.0 API.
  • Pure Java Type 3 Driver
    The Recital Universal JDBC driver is a 100% pure Java Type 3 driver.
  • Full Access to Metadata
    The JDBC API provides metadata access that enables the development of sophisticated applications that need to understand the underlying facilities and capabilities of a specific database connection.
  • Cross-platform Data Integration
    Using the Recital Universal JDBC driver, you can connect to remote Windows, Linux, Unix or OpenVMS servers and access any data source supported by the Recital Database Server.
  • No Installation
    A pure JDBC technology-based driver does not require special installation; it is automatically downloaded as part of the applet that makes the JDBC calls. The Recital Universal JDBC Driver is 100% java.
Recital Universal ODBC Driver

Connect to remote data from Microsoft Office or other applications that support ODBC data access. The Recital Universal ODBC Driver is also available for Linux and Unix.

Key features of the Recital Universal ODBC Driver:

  • Fully Internet enabled
    The Recital Universal ODBC driver works across the internet providing access to a wide range of data sources located on remote servers running Windows, Linux, Unix and OpenVMS.
  • Works with Crystal Reports
    The Recital Universal ODBC driver supports the SQL syntax generated by Crystal Reports.
  • Works with Microsoft Office
    The Recital Universal ODBC driver works with Microsoft Office products.
  • Works with PHP on Linux
    The Recital Universal ODBC driver is available for Linux and works with PHP.
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Awk is an powerful text processing language that allows you to manipulate files containing columns of data and strings. Awk is extremely useful, both for general operation of Unix commands, and for data transformation.
 
Introduced in Recital 10 is the PIPETOSTR() function (as well as backticks `` inside strings) which can be used  in conjunction with awk to transform recital data.
 
The following links provide good tutorials on awk:
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All temporary files created by Recital are stored in the directory specified by the environment variable DB_TMPDIR.

 
In order to have these files stored in memory first create a temporary directory
mkdir /opt/recital/tmp
 
Then mount the directory with the tmpfs command
mount -t tmpfs -o size=1g recitaltmpfs /usr/recital/tmp
 
Then change the DB_TMPDIR variable in the recital.conf to point to the newly created temporary directory.
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Key features of the Recital scripting language include:

What are the key feature of the Recital database?

  • High performance database application scripting language
  • Modern object-oriented language features
  • Easy to learn, easy to use
  • Fast, just-in-time compiled
  • Develop desktop or web applications
  • Cross-platform support
  • Extensive built-in functions
  • Superb built-in SQL command integration
  • Navigational data access for the most demanding applications
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For Recital to run correctly on 64bit Linux you require the ia32 shared libraries.

The 64bit port of Recital requires these libraries to allow access to 32bit Xbase and C-ISAM data files which are 32bit.

If you do not have these libraries installed you will either get a "can't find db.exe" or an "error loading shared libraries" when trying to run or license Recital.

Installing the ia32 shared libraries

Redhat EL 5 / Centos 5 / Fedora 10

  1. Insert the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Supplementary CD, which contains the ia32el package.

  2. After the system has mounted the CD, change to the directory containing the Supplementary packages. For example:

    cd /media/cdrom/Supplementary/

  3. Install the ia32el package:

    rpm -Uvh ia32el-<version>.ia64.rpm

Alternatively: Note you must have the required repo's enabled.
 yum install ia32el

Ubuntu / Debian

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

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Recital 10 Express Edition Linux x86 Free Download.

Recital 10 introduces the free single-user developer edition called Recital Express that can be used to develop and test multi-user Recital, Recital Server and Recital Web applications. Once the applications are ready for deployment a commercial license must be purchased. Recital Express, Recital Server Express and Recital Web Express can be used unlicensed for non-commercial purposes only.

What does this download include:

Recital 10

A powerful scripting language with an embedded database used for developing desktop database applications on Linux and Unix. Recital has a high degree of compatibility with Microsoft FoxPRO enhanced with many additional enterprise class extensions.

Web

Recital 10 Web

A server-side scripting language with an embedded database for creating web 2.0 applications. Includes plugins for apache and IIS. Coming soon! Recital Web Framework, a comprehensive OO framework built on YUI for building RIA (Rich Internet Applications) in Recital Web.

Recital 10 Server

A cross-platform SQL database and application server which includes client drivers for ODBC, JDBC and .NET enabling Recital data to be accessed client/server from Windows, Linux and Mac.

 Safe

Recital 10 Replication

A comprehensive replication product that addresses urgent data movement and synchronization needs to help support disaster recovery and business continuity for Recital applications.


Recital 10 Quick Start:

Graphical Installation

Note: The installation must be run as root. For systems with a hidden root account, please use ’Run as Root’.

  1. Download the distribution file into a temporary directory
  2. Check that the distribution file has the execute permission set
  3. Run the distribution file
  4. Follow the on screen instructions:
    1. License agreement
    2. Select components
    3. Installation directory and shortcuts
    4. Linking to /usr/bin
    5. ODBC Installation type (Recital Server / Recital Client Drivers)
    6. Java Virtual Machine selection (Recital Server / Recital Client Drivers)
    7. TomCat Installation type (Recital Server / Recital Client Drivers)
    8. Apache Firecat Plugin Installation (Recital Web Developer)
    9. Replication Service Type (Recital Replication Server)
    10. Install license file

Text Installation

Note: The installation must be run as root. For systems with a hidden root account, please precede commands with ’sudo’.

  1. Download the distribution file into a temporary directory
  2. Check that the distribution file has the execute permission set
  3. Run the distribution file
  4. Follow the on screen instructions:
    1. License agreement
    2. Select components
    3. Installation directory and shortcuts
    4. Linking to /usr/bin
    5. ODBC Installation type (Recital Server / Recital Client Drivers)
    6. Java Virtual Machine selection (Recital Server / Recital Client Drivers)
    7. TomCat Installation type (Recital Server / Recital Client Drivers)
    8. Apache Firecat Plugin Installation (Recital Web Developer)
    9. Replication Service Type (Recital Replication Server)
    10. Install license file


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Recital is a dynamic programming language particularly suited to the development of database applications. While Recital still supports standard procedural programming, new extensions to the language give you the power and flexibility of object-oriented programming. Object-oriented design and object-oriented programming represent a change in focus from standard procedural programming. This short primer will give you a good understanding of how to program object-oriented Recital.
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VMware products, such as ESX, Workstation, Server, and Fusion, come with a built-in VNC server to access guests.

This allows you to connect to the guest without having a VNC server installed in the guest - useful if a server doesn't exist for the guest or if you need access some time when a server would not work (say during the boot process). It's also good in conjunction with Headless Mode.

The VNC server is set up on a per-VM basis, and is disabled by default. To enable it, add the following lines to the .vmx:

RemoteDisplay.vnc.enabled = "TRUE" 
RemoteDisplay.vnc.port = "5901"

You can set a password with RemoteDisplay.vnc.key; details for how to calculate the obfuscated value given a plaintext password are in Compute hashed password for use with RemoteDisplay.vnc.key.

If you want more than one VM set up in this manner, make sure they have unique port numbers. To connect, use a VNC client pointing at host-ip-address:port. If you connect from a different computer, you may have to open a hole in the OS X firewall. If you use Leopard's Screen Sharing.app on the same computer as Fusion, don't use port 5900 since Screen Sharing refuses to connect to that.

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To insert code samples into your articles in joomla, you use the pre tag like this:

<pre xml:lang="xxx"> your code goes here </pre>

You can use any of the following languages for colorizing your code in articles. 
 

recital, abap, dos, lotusscript, rails, actionscript3, dot, lscript, reg, actionscript, d, lua, robots, ada, eiffel, m68k, ruby, apache, email, make, sas, applescript, fortran, matlab, scala, apt_sources, freebasic, mirc, scheme, asm, genero, mpasm, scilab, asp, gettext, mxml, sdlbasic, autoit, glsl, mysql, smalltalk, avisynth, gml, nsis, smarty, bash, gnuplot, objc, sql, basic4gl, groovy,

ocaml-brieftcl, bf, haskell, ocaml, teraterm, blitzbasic, hq9plus, oobas, text, bnf, html4strict, oracle11, thinbasic, boo, idl, oracle8, tsql, caddcl, index.html, pascal, typoscript, cadlisp, ini, perl, vbnet, cfdg, inno, per, vb, cfm, intercal, php-brief, verilog, cil, io, php, vhdl, c_mac, java5, pic16, vim, cobol, java, pixelbender, visualfoxpro, c, javascript, plsql, visualprolog, cpp, kixtart, povray, whitespace, cpp-qt, klonec, powershell, winbatch, csharp, klonecpp, progress, xml, css, latex, prolog, xorg_conf, delphi, lisp, providex, xpp, diff, lolcode, python, z80, div, lotusformulas, qbasic

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Recital 10 introduced the ECHO command. This command operates in the same way as the PHP ECHO command. It does not append a newline to the output but rather operates in the same way as the existing ?? command in Recital. The string being output can contain C-style string escapes \n \t or \r (newline, tab and carriage return respectively) e.g.
echo "Hello world\n"
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