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6 Databases

6.1 What databases work with DataVision?

Any database that has a JDBC driver. This means PostgreSQL, MySQL, Informix, Oracle, hsqldb, Microsoft Access, Progress, and more.

As of version 0.2.1, DataVision has stopped relying upon the more advanced JDBC features it used. This means that pretty much any JDBC driver should work.

For information about driver names and connection info string formats see your database's JDBC driver documentation. Some suggestions also appear in the DataVision User's Manual.

6.2 Can DataVision read data from anywhere else?

Yes. DataVision can read from character-separated text files. There is no GUI support yet for telling DataVision about the structure of the contents of the text file; see charsep in the User's Manual for details on how to edit your report XML file to describe the contents of the file.

Similar to the way that there are multiple layout engines, there are multiple data sources. Only two are implemented: JDBC databases and character-separated text files.

6.3 Can DataVision handle binary database fields?

No. The problem with binary fields is that there is no way for DataVision to know what is in the field: text, an image, music. Even if you told it what the field contains, DataVision would then have to know about every image, music, or text format in order to display it properly.

6.4 Where is the latest version of the MM.MySQL driver?

Some users have had problems with drivers earlier than 2.0.11. You can find the latest version of the MM.MySQL driver from that project's SourceForge downloads page.

6.5 Why can't DataVision find my database columns any more?

As of 0.6.0, table and column names in DataVision are case-sensitive. See Database Name Case Sensitivity for details.

From versions 0.7.3 through 0.7.5, there was a bug that prevented tables from loading their column desriptions under certain circumstances. You would see tables in the report, but any tables not in the report would not load their columns properly when you tried to see their columns in the Field Picker window.

6.6 Why can't I see my PostgreSQL table's columns?

Upgrade your PostgreSQL JDBC driver if you are using Java 1.4. At least two PostgreSQL users were having different problems with PostgreSQL when upgrading to Java 1.4. They downloaded devpgjdbc3.jar and that seemed to fix their problems.


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