Index of /tcl/ftparchive/sorted/packages-7.6/databases/adabastcl-1.0

What is AdabasTcl?

AdabasTcl is an extension to TCL (Tool Command Language), that provides access to an ADABAS D database server of Software AG. AdabasTcl adds additional Tcl commands that connect to a database, pass SQL code, read results, etc. AdabasTcl was inspired by similar extensions for other database servers, notably oratcl by Tom Poindexter.

There are also four TK (ToolKit) applications, that provide the access to the database in the X11 environment with the motif look and feel. You can run them on a windows system, too.

panel

A tool for driving the database server (the traffic light).

tkquery

A tool for interactive SQL queries.

tkuser

A tool for setting default attributes for user keys.

fotos

A application to demonstrate the capability to display pictures out of LONG columns.

These applications can be started as Tclets inside the Netscape brower, too.

Last but not least there is an extension module for perl, which makes it possible to access Adabas D from Perl.

Copyright (c) 1996-1997 Christian Krone. All rights reserved.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Tcl itself.
See also licence.terms

What's new in this release?

• lots of bug fixes;
• smoother installation on more Unix systems and on Windows 95/NT;
• compatiblitiy with Tcl8.0 (inclusive use of the new Tcl objects!);
• the perl extension is not so hidden anymore;
• Netscape plugin support;
• visible improvements in TkQuery:
  • A new resizer handle between the sql window and the result window.
  • New tree widget for selecting stored commands.
  • New ,,explorer like'' DB Objects window, where on the left the user can navigate in a tree with all objects, and on the right details of the selected objects are displayed.

See the file changes for details.

Requirements

Since AdabasTcl is an extension to TCL, you should already have TCL, or be prepared to get it via ftp. To use the feature of dynamically loading the AdabasTcl extension into the TCL interpreter (tclsh), you must have TCL version 7.5. The tk applications need the installed TK widget set version 4.1.

Installation

To configure, compile and install AdabasTcl, you have to go through the following approximately 3 steps.

1. First start ./configure in this directory. You have a good chance, that this will work out all the options for your machine correctly. If it stops or determines invalid values for some of its variables, you can tune it with options on its command line; here are some examples:
   ./configure --with-tclinclude=/usr/local/include
   ./configure --with-adabas=6.1 --without-x
   An extensive list of all options is available by ./configure --help. After this you could (but don't have to) inspect the Makefiles; the most important one is located in the extension subdirectory. See also Porting Notes below.
2. If you want to compile the perl extension, be sure to give the --with-perl option.
3. Then a call of make should build all targets in all the subdirectories. If something went wrong, most likely some variables in the Makefile needs more attention. Again, see Porting notes below.
4. It is important to have the environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH point to $DBROOT/lib, if there are shared libraries of Adabas D (e.g. libsqlrte.so or libsqlptc.so).
5. There exists a make test target in the extension and perl/Adabas subdirectories, which (after building the extension) calls a test file and displays the result.
6. If all went well, a call of make install installs the extension plus the applications and their help pages.
7. How to use the Tclets from inside Netscape, can be read as the following URL: file:DBROOT/tcl/plugin/index.html.

Porting Notes

This package has been compiled and tested on the following platforms:

Linux

With ELF Kernel it should compile out of the box (one of the development platforms). This is currently the only platform, where the perl extension is tested.

Unixware 2.1

Without any problem (the other development platform).

SCO V4.2

No dynamic loading and no X, but adabastclsh runs okay (former development platform).

DEC Unix 3.2

No problems.

HP-UX

I had to use the following call of make to get it compiled.
make CC=c89
With earlier version a loading of Adabastcl.sl wasn't possible, because there was not enough memory (that's, what the loader said!). So there should be the --disable-load option present in the call of configure. This bug doesn't occur lately, but I don't know, if it is gone forever...

SUN_OS 5.5.1

I had to set the LIBS variable to -lcurses to get configure running.

Windows95/NT

See section Windows below.

Windows

For configuration, compilation and installation you can call the Tk program makeVC.tcl. There you can customize the mentioned configuration variables. After this a click of the button Make should build and install everything.

It is tested with VC++ (not Borland!). If you have the precompiled version of Tcl/Tk, you need the vc libs, which should be available at the same ftp sides, where you got Tcl/Tk. In Tcl8.0b1 or later they are part of the normal distribution as .../TCL/lib/tcl80vc.lib and .../TCL/lib/tk80vc.lib. This are the locations, where they are expected even with older versions.

You have to create icons and/or shortcuts for the tk appls in $DBROOT/bin manually.

With the Windows95 PE 6.1 there is a bug, that every application reports an invalid instruction on exiting.

Bug reports