tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-283512002011-06-08T07:38:23.424+01:00Exploring OO Access to Relational Databases Using Vanatec OpenAccess (by Ralf Westphal)openaccesshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05366730561280567750noreply@blogger.comBlogger121100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28351200.post-7597187118966468092007-09-07T14:57:00.001+01:002007-09-07T14:57:39.783+01:00

With a pretty good idea of how the data model of my little Learnbox application should look, I guess I can start with the implementation. Right? Hm... No, better to start with the architecture first. Better to make a plan of what I need in terms of structures and relationships. Then the implementation should be a piece-a-cake. Features I want to build the Learnbox application incrementally in

Ralf Westphal - One Man Think Tankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05225416366856069349noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28351200.post-37781717418618010082007-07-06T19:35:00.001+01:002007-07-06T19:35:50.591+01:00

In my previous posting I introduced a scenario to which I want to apply Vanatec OpenAccess (VOA) as an example for an O/R Mapper. I want to see how it can help me reducing the effort to invest into a data access layer. And I want to see how persistent objects can be handled in business logic and fronend. Developing a solution for a concrete scenario will make it easier for me to excersice the

Ralf Westphal - One Man Think Tankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05225416366856069349noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28351200.post-34432996059232442052007-06-06T18:20:00.001+01:002007-07-05T14:37:14.868+01:00

After a little pause I´m now back at exploring the world of O/R Mapping. However, when looking back at my first steps so far I´m in doubt if I want to continue in the same way. Up to now I approached O/R Mapping in general and OpenAccess in specific in a pretty generic way. I tried to get it up and running with just any simple enough code. My approach was pretty theoretical. But when I look ahead

Ralf Westphal - One Man Think Tankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05225416366856069349noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28351200.post-19634561922550484742007-03-25T18:10:00.001+01:002007-03-25T18:12:40.449+01:00

I did not declare any static methods on my persistent classes (see previous posting), so someone else must have done it, so they appear in the compiled assembly. Look here, this is my persistent class as seen through Lutz Roeder´s Reflector:<!--{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg\lang1024\noproof1252\uc1 \deff0{\fonttbl{\f0\fnil\fcharset0\fprq1 Courier New;}}{\colortbl;\red0\green0\blue0;\red0\green0\blue255;\

Ralf Westphal - One Man Think Tankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05225416366856069349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28351200.post-42138995471692079572007-03-24T17:22:00.001+01:002007-03-26T09:09:08.062+01:00

One of the benefits of O/R Mapping is supposed to be transparency of loading and storing data. You should not need to care exactly when and how data is stored. Just focus on creating and manipulating and selcting your objects. Except for some general interaction with the O/R Mapping infrastructure, you just do, whatever you would do with your objects if they were not persistent: <!--{\rtf1\ansi\

Ralf Westphal - One Man Think Tankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05225416366856069349noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28351200.post-10396321867522783912007-03-10T18:29:00.001+01:002007-03-10T20:54:58.394+01:00

Today I downloaded a new version of VOA from Vanatec´s site. Vanatec´s support had told me, they had fixed some stuff I complained about in this blog. Well, let me see...  1. The "installation experience" was better than last time. They indeed put all install files in a directory tagged with the version number. This makes for less clutter on my hard disk, I´d say. 2. Installation was smooth. The

Ralf Westphal - One Man Think Tankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05225416366856069349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28351200.post-84985693711504014292007-03-10T16:43:00.001+01:002007-03-10T16:44:08.071+01:00

In Part 1 of "The basic CRUD operations" I showed you how to add to and retrieve objects from a database. Now here´s how to change and delete them: Updating objects Updating objects is the easiest part of all.  I can´t even show what to do, because you don´t need to do anything special :-) You just load the objects you want to modify (lines 81ff below) , modify them (lines 85, 88f) - and that´s

Ralf Westphal - One Man Think Tankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05225416366856069349noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28351200.post-24876130301310535922007-03-10T16:28:00.001+01:002007-03-10T16:45:33.323+01:00

Before I drill down into single features of O/R Mapping, I´d like to give you an overview of how to do the most common operations on RDBMS data with OpenAccess. How to implement CRUD functionality using an O/R Mapper? Persistent classes First things first. Here´s the class model I want to use for today´s experiment. It´s a little more elaborate than so far: <!--{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg\lang1024\

Ralf Westphal - One Man Think Tankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05225416366856069349noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28351200.post-85098105101016999732007-03-05T18:09:00.001+01:002007-03-10T21:52:26.237+01:00

I like to keep my software artifacts together during development. Preferrably I organize them under a single folder for a whole project. That´s also true for databases. Fortunately SQL Server 2005 lets you accomplish this for its databases by using the AttachDbFilename parameter in a connection string. Using this feature I now want to switch from a global sample database to a local database. But

Ralf Westphal - One Man Think Tankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05225416366856069349noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28351200.post-26792845843082322532007-03-03T13:56:00.001+01:002007-03-05T17:46:08.686+01:00

After having set up VOA on your PC, you sure want to try persisting an object. So what´s the quickest way to reach this goal? Step 1: Create a VS2005 solution+project to put your code into. Either use a console application project or a library project like I did (for details on my code organization see below). Step 2: "Enable" your project by stepping through the VOA wizard at OpenAccess|Enable

Ralf Westphal - One Man Think Tankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05225416366856069349noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28351200.post-15470213844204159742007-03-01T08:41:00.000+01:002008-12-11T03:21:31.836+01:00

Every journey into the wonders of a software technology starts with... setting up the technology. Vanatec OpenAccess (VOA) is no exception to this rule. Fortunately the setup process is simple and made up of three steps: DownloadInstallationActivation Just follow along and I´ll show you all where to get VOA and how to set it up on your machine. DownloadTo start exploring VOA I suggest you

Ralf Westphal - One Man Think Tankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05225416366856069349noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28351200.post-27484143820978302822007-02-23T15:11:00.000+01:002007-02-24T09:02:37.237+01:00

This is an experiment. After a year or two only wetting my feet in O/R Mapping on the .NET platform and talking more about it than actually using it, I really want to dive deeply into it. I believe O/R Mapping is a very, very useful concept, and I actually want to apply it to scenarios I see again and again in my clients´ projects.I plan to explore the world of O/R Mapping for several months and

Ralf Westphal - One Man Think Tankhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05225416366856069349noreply@blogger.com0