DSEDIT - Windows DataSource Editor

DSEDIT, the Omnidex Data Source Editor is a Windows utility that creates and modifies Omnidex data sources.

Omnidex Data Sources are used by the ODBC, JDBC, and CLOA interfaces to provide information needed to connect and operate between a client computer running the application and a server computer that contains the data and Omnidex Indexes.

Omnidex Data Sources can take the following forms:

1. ODBC User, System or File data sources for use with ODBC based applications.
2. JDBC File data source for use with Java JDBC applications.
3. CLOA File data source for use applications that call the CLOA routines.

Note that DISC recommends that new applications are developed using the ODBC and JDBC interfaces.

Using information contained in the data source, DSEDIT can also be used to test network connections, show structural information about the underlying data, the Omnidex index installation, and perform simple retrievals against the database.

Data source objects are a collection of configuration information that defines server and connection protocol information necessary to allow a client application to talk to a remote server. This includes the host (server) name or IP address, OdxNet listener port number, physical file location of the Omnidex Environment Catalog, and other pertinent information. This information is used by the Omnidex ODBC and JDBC drivers, as well as the Omnidex Client OmniAccess API.

Some server only applications can connect directly to the Omnidex Environment Catalog and will therefore not pass through an Omnidex Network Server nor require a Data Source object. However, the Omnidex ODBC and JDBC drivers are both client components of the Omnidex software, and therefore will always pass through an Omnidex Network Server, regardless of the network configuration. This means that single tier applications using ODBC or JDBC, where the application and database reside on the same machine, will go through an Omnidex Data Source object and an Omnidex Network Server.

A data source object is also required in client / server applications when the client platform is not Windows. Although, DSEDIT is a Windows only utility, meaning it will only run on the Windows operating system, it can still be used to create data sources for use on the other supported platforms.

Simply use the wizard to create a Generic or CLOA data source, passing the appropriate server information, and save the data source to the local machine. Since the data source is an ASCII text file, it can be easily copied to another platform.

If your client application will be using ODBC to access the data, you will need to make one minor edit inside the data source file. To do this, open the data source file with any text editor and look for the ODBCDSNFILE=datasourcefilespec near the top. It should be around the third line.

This tag shows the physical file location of the data source as it was originally created on the Windows machine. You simply need to change the path to show where you moved the data source file to. Save your changes and exit.

The data source file is now ready for use on the new client machine.

Omnidex File Datasources (also known as FileDSNs) can also be created by copying an existing File Datasource and modifying it with any standard editor since a FileDSN is a text file in Windows INI format.