OpenEdge uses a Type 4 JDBC driver. The following figure shows the architecture of a Java application using a Type 4 JDBC driver.

Figure 1. OpenEdge JDBC Type 4 driver architecture


In the following figure, the Java application includes calls to the JDBC API. A JDBC API call must be performed using either the DriverManager.getConnection or the DataSource.getConnection method. The getConnection method obtains a connection to the appropriate JDBC Driver. The DriverManager or DataSource class is used to manage that connection.

JDBC components

The JDBC architecture consists of several files. The JDBC driver includes the openedge.jar AND pool.jar files. The following table lists the locations of the files.

Table 1. JDBC driver component file locations
Platform Files and locations
Windows 
%DLC%\java\openedge.jar
%DLC%\java\pool.jar
Sun Solaris SPARC (32 bit and 64 bit)Compaq Tru64 UNIXLinux X86IBM AIXHP-UX (32 bit and 64 bit) 
$DLC/java/openedge.jar
$DLC/java/pool.jar

DLC is the directory where OpenEdge is installed on the machine. In Windows, the DLC environment variable is set in the Registry during the installation of OpenEdge. On UNIX, you must set the DLC environment variable yourself. If an environment variable is modified while the database is up, then the database must be shut down and restarted so the database broker and the SQL engine can see the new value.

JDBC API support

The JDBC driver contains the core JDBC 3.0 APIs and some extended features. The JDBC 3.0 API includes the java.sql package, which contains the core APIs, and the javax.sql package, which contains the extended features of JDBC 3.0.

The OpenEdge SQL Engine supports the Java Transaction API (JTA) of the J2EE framework architecture. Support for JTA enables the OpenEdge database to participate in distributed SQL transactions. With distributed JTA transactions, the OpenEdge database takes the role of the resource manager in the J2EE framework, and relies on an external transaction manager to coordinate the commit or rollback of the distributed transactions.

For a complete list of the APIs supported by the JDBC driver, see OpenEdge SQL Reference.