The database data link support classes provide a means for storing file
links into a database and accessing file links from a database. These
classes store the information that you use to create and access data links to
files. These data links give file access the same data integrity as
data that is stored in the database. See the Quick Beginnings for
DB2 File Manager for more information on data links and the Data Link File Manager. The
following platforms support the VisualAge data link type:
The following classes make up VisualAge data link support:
To insert or update a data link, create an instance of this class, set the
scheme, server, and pathOnly attributes, and
send the instance as input on the INSERT statement execution.
When you fetch a data link, VisualAge returns an instance of this class
with the scheme, server, pathOnly,
complete, and comment attributes set.
The AbtDataLink class contains all of the attributes except
path and linktype. You can retrieve the
path and linktype attributes using the
#getAttribute:ofDataLink: method.
The complete list of data link attributes is:
To display more than one attribute, add two container details columns and
set the AbtDataLinkConverter instance for each column to the
appropriate attribute.
The following table shows the valid attributes and an example of what is
displayed. For this example, the data links server machine is
abc.raleigh.ibm.com. The files are
stored in x/y directory and the filename is
filename.ext. The astericks represent an access token
which UDB provides.
Data link support classes (DB/2 only)
Note: The characters used in a data link value are limited to the set defined for a
URL. These characters include the uppercase (A through Z) and lower
case (a through z) letters, the digits (0 through 9) and a subset of special
characters ($, -, @, ., &, +, !, *, ", ', (,), =, ;, /,
#, ?, :, space, and comma).
Attribute
Example
Link Type
URL
Complete
http://abc.raleigh.ibm.com/x/y/****;filename.ext
Path
/x/y/****;filename.ext
Path Only
/x/y/filename.ext
Scheme
http
Server
abc.raleigh.ibm.com
Data link restrictions
Notes:
DLURLSCHEME(DL)='HTTP' AND
DLURLSERVER(DL)='ABC.RALEIGH.IBM.COM' AND
DLURLPATHONLY(DL)='/test.dat'