Establishes a connection to one or more databases from within an ABL procedure or class.
Note: OpenEdge identifies all connected databases for access within an external procedure or class at the start of execution for each compilation unit. Therefore, you cannot directly connect a database using this statement and directly access tables in the database from within the same external procedure or class. Instead, you can directly connect the database in one procedure or class, and from this one call another external subprocedure, or instantiate another class, that accesses the database tables.
Syntax
CONNECT
{
{ physical-name | VALUE ( expression ) } [ options ] |options
}
[ NO-ERROR ]
|
-
physical-name
- The actual name of the database on disk. It can be a simple filename,
relative pathname, or a fully qualified pathname, represented as an unquoted string, or
a quoted string. If you do not give a fully qualified pathname, the AVM searches for the
database relative to your current working directory. The database name is restricted to
alphanumeric characters. Diacritical marks and the symbols \ " ' * ; | ? [ ] ( ) ! { }
< > @ + = : ~ are not permitted.
- VALUE ( expression )
- A character expression (a quoted string, field name, variable
name, or similar expression) whose value starts with the Physical
Database Name (-db) connection parameter followed
by zero or more of the same client connection parameters that you
can specify in options.
-
options
- One or more client connection parameters (unquoted), similar to those
used to start OpenEdge. Valid options are a subset of OpenEdge startup parameters that
include all client database connection parameters. If you specify options without physical-name or VALUE (expression), the first
database connection parameter must be the Physical Database Name (-db) parameter. The specification of the User ID (-U) parameter (and Password (-P) parameter, if required), determines the user identity for the
connection, and its tenancy (if the database is multi-tenant). Note that these (and all
connection) parameters are case sensitive.
- If you need to use an argument with the special characters (diacritical marks and the
symbols \ " ' * ; | ? [ ] ( ) ! { } < > @ + = : ~), the argument must be quoted
for the AVM to handle it properly. The following code shows one way to apply this for a
password, vpasswd, that may contain special characters:
-
connString = "-db test -U " + vUser + " -P " + QUOTER(vpasswd).
CONNECT VALUE(connString)
|
-
Caution:
If you do not specify -U and -P, for backward compatibility,
OpenEdge attempts to connect the database with a default connection identity. This
default connection identity can be set using either the blank ("") user ID or the user ID of the operating system process in which the
AVM is running. The user ID set for the default connection identity depends on the
domain configuration in the database. For more information on connecting with a
default identity, see the User ID (-U) parameter
description in Startup Command and
Parameter Reference. For more information on the effects of connecting a
database with a default identity, see the Notes of this statement entry.
For more information on all database client connection parameters,
see Startup Command and Parameter
Reference.
- NO-ERROR
- The NO-ERROR option is used to prevent the
statement from raising ERROR and displaying error messages.
For the CONNECT statement with
NO-ERROR, the option does not suppress all errors produced by the
server; only errors caused by the CONNECT statement itself. For
example, if the server to which you are connecting runs out of resources, its error
message will not be suppressed. If a CONNECT error occurs (for
example, the database does not exist or is in use in single-user mode), error
information is written to the ERROR-STATUS system handle.
Examples
This
procedure attempts to connect to databases mydb1 and mydb2 in
single-user mode, with error suppression. You must connect to a
database before you run a procedure that references it.
r-connct.p
CONNECT mydb1 -1 -db mydb2 -1 NO-ERROR.
|
The following four code fragments attempt exactly
the same database connection to the Sports2000 database:
CONNECT C:\OpenEdge\WRK\db\Sports2000 -H dbserver -S 1900 NO-ERROR.
|
CONNECT -db C:\OpenEdge\WRK\db\Sports2000 -H dbserver -S 1900
NO-ERROR.
|
CONNECT VALUE("-db C:\OpenEdge\WRK\db\Sports2000 -H dbserver
-S 1900")
NO-ERROR.
|
CONNECT VALUE("-db C:\OpenEdge\WRK\db\Sports2000 -H dbserver")
-S 1900
NO-ERROR.
|
The following procedure fragment shows how you can use the
VALUE option to specify a user ID (cUserID) and password (cPasswd) that a user
might enter in response to a prompt to authenticate the same database connection:
DEFINE INPUT PARAMETER cUserID AS CHARACTER NO-UNDO.
DEFINE INPUT PARAMETER cPasswd AS CHARACTER NO-UNDO.
CONNECT C:\OpenEdge\WRK\db\Sports2000
VALUE( "-U " + cUserID +
" -P " + "oech1::" + AUDIT-POLICY:ENCRYPT-AUDIT-MAC-KEY(cPasswd))
-H dbserver -S 1900 NO-ERROR.
|
Note also that this fragment encrypts the password
value (cPasswd) and concatenates it with a prefix
in a form that OpenEdge expects for encrypted passwords. For more
information, see the ENCRYPT-AUDIT-MAC-KEY( ) method reference entry.
In the next example, assume
database sports2000 has not been previously connected,
so the following r-cnct1.p procedure fails.
At the start of execution, r-cnct1.p checks
whether sports2000 is connected. If sports2000 is
not connected, a run-time error occurs. As shown in the example,
attempting to connect to sports2000 within the
procedure does not solve the problem:
r-cnct1.p
/* NOTE: this code does NOT work */
CONNECT sports2000 -1.
FOR EACH sports2000.Customer NO-LOCK:
DISPLAY Customer.
END.
|
Instead, split r-cnct1.p into
two procedures, as shown in r-dispcu.p and r-cnct2.p:
r-dispcu.p
FOR EACH sports2000.Customer NO-LOCK:
DISPLAY Customer.
END.
|
r-cnct2.p
CONNECT sports2000 -1.
RUN r-dispcu.p.
|
This time, database sports2000 is
connected before r-dispcu.p is invoked, so r-dispcu.p runs
successfully.
Notes
- The
user identity set for a database connection determines:
- If
and how the user has permission to access tables and fields in the
connected database
- The tenant organization through which the user access a multi-tenant
database
- The audit identity used to record audit policy events during
the connection process
- OpenEdge authenticates any user identity that you specify for the
CONNECT statement using the local database domain registry, even if the
database option is set to use the application (session) domain registry.
- To authenticate the user identity specified for a database connection:
- The user's security domain must be defined in the OpenEdge database.
- The domain must be authentication-enabled:
- The user's
domain must be enabled in the database.
- The user's domain must be configured with an authentication system that
supports OpenEdge-performed user authentication. For the CONNECT
statement (but not the startup command line), this can
include a domain configured with a user-defined authentication system that has an
ABL authentication plugin enabled.
- The configured authentication system must have access to a source
of valid user accounts.
- The user credentials specified by the -U and -P parameters
must match a user account accessible through the authentication
system configured for the user's domain.
For information
on OpenEdge support for domains and domain configuration, see Introduction to Identity Management.
- The user authentication operation of the CONNECT
statement can fail for any one of the following reasons, among others:
- The User ID (-U) connection
parameter includes an invalid format.
- The user ID's account is not found in the domain.
- The domain is not defined.
- The domain is not enabled.
- The Password (-P) value specified
for the user account is invalid.
- The domain is configured for single sign-on (SSO) operations
only.
- The authentication system returns an error for any other
reason.
- For the connection identity set with the CONNECT
statement, OpenEdge creates a sealed security token containing the user credentials for
the database connection, which you can return as a client-principal object using the GET-DB-CLIENT function. This
client-principal is created even if OpenEdge connects the database with a default
connection identity (that is, you do not specify -U and
-P). However, for a default connection identity,
OpenEdge does not seal the client-principal using the access code configured for a
registered domain. Instead, OpenEdge creates a unique internal access code to seal the
object. As a result, you cannot use the sealed client-principal object to assign the
default user identity it represents to any OpenEdge database connection or ABL
session.
- Each connected database is assigned a logical name for the current session,
and is referred to by this logical name during the session. Use
the Logical Database Name (-ld) parameter to specify
a logical name. If the logical name is not specified using the -ld parameter,
then the physical database filename, without the .db suffix,
is the default logical name. For example, if the physical name is /users/eastcoast/proapp/mydb.db,
then the default logical name is mydb. Logical
names are not case sensitive.
- Databases can have aliases (see also ALIAS function).
A database can have more than one alias, but each alias refers to
only one database. The first database connected during a given session
automatically receives the alias DICTDB. The first database connected
that has a _menu file automatically receives
the alias FTDB. You can reassign the FTDB alias to any other FAST
TRACK database.
- When you try to connect the same database twice using the same logical
name, the AVM returns a warning, which you can suppress with
NO-ERROR.
- When you try to connect different databases using the same logical
name, the AVM returns an error message and an error condition. You can suppress the error
condition with NO-ERROR, and test with the CONNECTED
function.
- When you try to connect to multiple databases and a connection fails, a
run-time error occurs. The successfully connected databases remain connected and program
execution continues. Use the CONNECTED function to find out which
databases are successfully connected.
- If you run a procedure that requires a database and that database
is not connected, the AVM searches for the database in the auto-connect lists
in all connected databases. If the AVM finds the required database there,
it automatically attempts to connect to the database with the parameters
set for it in the auto-connect list. You can edit the auto-connect
list using the database utilities in the OpenEdge Data Dictionary.
If the AVM does not find it, the connection attempt fails.
- Connection information found in an OpenEdge auto-connect list is merged
with connection information in a CONNECT statement that connects the
database. So, if you connect a database with a CONNECT statement, and
that database already has an entry in the OpenEdge auto-connect list of a connected
database, the connection information in the auto-connect list and the
CONNECT statement is merged. However, the connection information in the
CONNECT statement takes precedence.
- Permission issues limit the use of the CONNECT
statement for raw I/O connections to databases in single-user and multi-user direct-access
mode on UNIX machines that do not support O_SYNC and SWRITE.
The ABL
client executable might require use of a privileged account that allows it to open raw
disk devices or large databases. Thus, you can open any databases specified on the
startup command line with raw I/O. Note that after startup on Unix, the client
executable relinquishes the privileges that allow it to open raw disk devices. As a
result, you cannot use the CONNECT statement to establish a raw I/O
connection to a database in single-user or multi-user direct-access mode.
When you try to use a CONNECT statement to open a raw
I/O connection to a database in single-user mode, the AVM establishes a buffered
(non-raw) I/O connection to the database and displays a non-raw warning
message.
- When you try to use a CONNECT statement to open a raw
I/O connection to a database in multi-user direct-access mode, one of the following events occur:
- If you started a server (PROSERVE) for the database with the
Buffered I/O (-r) parameter, the AVM establishes a
non-raw I/O connection to the database.
- If you started a server (PROSERVE) for the database with the Raw
I/O (-R) parameter, the CONNECT statement fails.
There are several ways to avoid these problems:
- Establish raw I/O database connections in the single-user and
multi-user direct-access modes at ABL startup.
- If you must use the CONNECT statement to establish
a raw I/O database connection, establish the connection with the Client Multi-user
(-cl) parameter. Be sure to start the database
server (PROSERVE) with the Raw I/O (-R) parameter
before you do this.
- If you must use the CONNECT statement to establish
a raw I/O database connection in single-user or multi-user direct access mode on UNIX,
follow these steps carefully:
- Change the permissions of the ABL client executable to
rwsrwsr-x by typing chmod 6775 _progres.
- Change the group of the client executable to match the group of
the raw device (for example, /dev/rsd0d) and
block special device (for example, /dev/sd0d).
- Change the permissions of the raw and block special devices to
"rw-rw----".
The disadvantage of this procedure is that all files produced
within OpenEdge have the same group as the disk device. Consider the
following:
- If you want to run a multi-user direct-access session in non-raw
mode, you must start the database server with the Buffered I/O (-r) parameter.
- If a database and accompanying before-image file have read-only
permissions (r--r--r--) and you try to connect to
that database in single-user or multi-user mode using the CONNECT
statement, the connection will fail with the following error:
This connection failure results because the _progres module relinquishes superuser privileges after
start-up and no longer possesses the privileges required to connect to the database
using the CONNECT statement.
- This statement does not attempt set the connection identity
for the foreign data source of a DataServer connection. However,
it does attempt to set the connection identity for the OpenEdge
schema holder database.
- For more information on connecting to databases from ABL, see OpenEdge External Programming Interface Reference.
See also
ALIAS function, CONNECTED function, CREATE ALIAS statement, CREATE CALL statement, DATASERVERS function, DBCODEPAGE function, DBCOLLATION function, DBRESTRICTIONS function, DBTYPE function, DBVERSION function, DELETE ALIAS statement, DISCONNECT statement, FRAME-DB function, LDBNAME function, NO-ERROR option, NUM-DBS function, PDBNAME function, SDBNAME function, SET-DB-CLIENT function, SETUSERID function