Re: How hard is Java, really?

["Joe Pluta" <joepluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Sean Porterfield
>
> > You said: "I suppose you can do a poor second by using the record-level
> access
> > functions within Java (and I get the impression that PHP might do the
> same)."
> > Do I read you correctly that Java and PHP only do record-level access
> and not set level if needed?
>
> Not to answer for Joe, but I read that the other way around.  Normally
> you would be using sets, SQL, JDBC, but there is allegedly a way to
> shoehorn the other languages in to emulate RPGs record-level access.

Hee hee!

I appreciate your not answering for me, Sean <grin>.  And you're exactly
right: JDBC in its simplest form is simply as wrapper over ODBC and as such
is a set-based RDB interface.

JDBC does allow calls to stored procedures as well, so technically you can
use it to directly call programs.  Also, the scrollable, updatable cursor
concept added in JDBC 2.0 gives you a subset of the capabilities of record
level access (the biggest shortcoming being the inability to position within
a result set by key).

However, the Java toolkit provides a second set of classes that provides
direct interface to the record-level access capabilities of DB2/400.
Through these classes programmers can emulate things like CHAIN and
SETLL/READE.  I wrote a course on that a while ago that directly compares
the RLA features of JDBC to their native equivalents.

It is my understanding, that PHP (which uses the same servers as JDBC) will
provide a similar set of record-level functions, but I haven't tested it.

Joe