Domino Connection


Compatibility considerations

If you want to write a "hybrid" application, you should obey all of the following rules to avoid conflicts. Have your Domino documentation available as a reference.

Naming conventions

Use the Domino naming convention and respect the naming constraints (i.e. maximum length of a field or form name).

Using reserved words
Be aware that some field names are reserved for functional fields in Domino. Do not use any field names beginning with a $ sign. See your Domino documentation to find out about reserved field names.

Case sensitivity
Be aware that names (fields, forms, views) are not case sensitive, even if you might see case sensitive names in the Notes client or the Domino Designer. Domino Connection uses uppercase names only. If you have your Domino server set up on UNIX systems you should be aware that database names might be case sensitive.

Data typing

Fields in a document are typed. They are either Text, TextList, Number, Time or Date or some other data type. Be careful not to rely strictly on a certain data type when you work with VisualAge. Always expect that a field might contain data of a different data type.

Note:If you have a form with a field definition named "Info", which is type text and is enabled to hold multiple values the following can occur: You type in a single string into the 'Info' field and save a document. The resulting AbtLnNote will have an AbtLnItemText named "Info". If you use the same form and type in two separated stings into the "Info" field, the resulting note will have an AbtLnItemTextList named "Info".

Fields in a document can change their field type from time to time, depending on the form which is used for processing. So be flexible with your VisualAge Smalltalk application or take measures to keep strict typing within documents.

Note:Forms can display data of any type in every field (i.e. a form field which is designed to be used with numbers can display a RTF field with bitmaps and graphics). Only if you want to store data of the wrong type, the form will signal an error.

RTF
Domino Connection offers limited RTF support. You can access every byte in a rich text field - but you have to fully understand the RTF format to actively manipulate the bytes. There is no public support for byte by byte access to RTF fields.

The regular RTF protocol performs a RTF to ASCII text conversion when you read a document. When you write to an AbtLnItemComposite, you can only pass Strings, which will be converted via a special API call into RTF format. That means if you read an note containing a RTF field with data other than text, and you modify and store that RTF field with Domino Connection, non-text data will be lost!


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