Special

Introducing the “Welcome to Xojo” Bundle!

New to Xojo and looking for guidance? We've put together a terrific bundle to welcome you! Xojo Bundle

This bundle includes six back issues of the magazine -- all of year 21 in printed book and digital formats -- plus a one-year subscription (beginning with 22.1) so you'll be learning all about Xojo for the next year. It's the perfect way to get started programming with Xojo. And you save as much as $35 over the non-bundle price!

This offer is only available for a limited time as supplies are limited, so hurry today and order this special bundle before the offer goes away!

Article Preview


Buy Now

Issue 20.4 ('Xojo Jigsaw')
Instant purchase and download via GumRoad!

COLUMN

ODBC

A Discussion on using ODBC

Issue: 20.4 (July/August 2022)
Author: Vince Du Beau
Author Bio: Vince is an experienced Filemaker developer. He is exploring Xojo as an alternative to Filemaker.
Article Description: No description available.
Article Length (in bytes): 6,390
Starting Page Number: 86
Article Number: 20409
Resource File(s):

Download Icon project20409.zip Updated: 2022-06-30 18:35:48

Related Web Link(s):

http://support.claris.com/s/article/Software-Update-FileMaker-xDBC-client-drivers-for-FileMaker-1503692806454?language=en_US
http://www.odbcmanager.net
http://www.iodbc.org/dataspace/doc/iodbc/wiki/iodbcWiki/WelcomeVisitors

Excerpt of article text...

In this issue, I'm taking a break from SQL to talk about ODBC or Open Database Connectivity. I recently came across a project on the freelancer site Upwork where the client was looking for a programmer who knew both Filemaker and Xojo.

After talking with the client, I discovered that he actually wanted to be able to access the Filemaker data with a Xojo program. There are basically two ways to do that: using the Filemaker Data API (which is convaluted and imposes data transfer limits) or ODBC.

If you are interested in the Filemaker connectors, they can be found online (http://support.claris.com/s/article/Software-Update-FileMaker-xDBC-client-drivers-for-FileMaker-1503692806454?language=en_US). For other connectors, Actual Technologies has a package with various ones. You can download a free version of the drivers to test, but you need to purchase them to use in a production environment. Actual also provides a free ODBC manager for MacOS (http://www.odbcmanager.net). Windows has its own ODBC manager. An ODBC manager for Linux called iODBC is also available (http://www.iodbc.org/dataspace/doc/iodbc/wiki/iodbcWiki/WelcomeVisitors).

Let's walk through an example set up. I'll start with an SQLite database since Filemaker is more complicated. When you install the ODBC manager on your Mac it will be placed in the Utilities menu under Applications. Upon opening the manager, you will be presented with the main window as shown in Figure 1.

Most documentation suggests using a System DSN as opposed to a User one. To create a new DSN, simply click the Add button and select the ODBC driver that you wish to use. In this case, I am using the Actual Open Source databases (see Figure 2).

If you select the open source driver, you will be presented with a message box about the driver package, click Continue and you will see a dialog box to choose which driver you wish to use (MYSQL, PostgreSQL, or SQLite). You can also name the DSN and give a description as seen in Figure 3.

...End of Excerpt. Please purchase the magazine to read the full article.