Enhanced Communications Layer. Prior to Release 4.1, the JDBC driver sent preformed database metadata calls in a manner considered to be redundant prior to SELECT statements. With this new release, each SELECT statement only sends and receives TCP packets associated with these metadata calls one time prior to execution.

Connection Pooling Support. The JDBC driver now supports connection pooling according to the JDBC 2.0 specification.

Scrollable Cursors

A new OpenLink RowSet class enables JDBC applications to take advantage of ODBC-style scrollable cursors functionality, with the ability to: retrieve rowsets, go to any row in the resultset or rowset, add new rows to the database, refresh and update any row with a single method invocation, lock and unlock any row, retrieve the current row number, as well as use ODBC-style bookmarks. This is an OpenLink extension to JDBC.

The Drivers for JDBC 2.0 implement the Scrollable Cursor Interfaces introduced in JDBC 2.0. They also retain support for the OpenLink Scrollable Cursor extension so as to provide access to those Scrollable Cursor features that exist in ODBC but are missing from the JDBC 2.0 specification.

Array Binding

As part of the new RowSet class. It is now possible to bind data arrays to the columns of the OpenLink RowSet object, and retrieve the data directly into the arrays with a single invocation of the RowSet.next() method. Please see the accompanying demonstration application for an example of its usage.

This approach enables you to retrieve multiple records with a reduced number of calls to the RowSet.next() method. It basically improves JDBC Application performance.

openlink.sql.Statement

This is a new OpenLink interface that extends java.sql.Statement to provide additional methods for configuring the ODBC-Style Scrollable Cursors functionality.

You only need this functionality when working with the OpenLink Scrollable Cursor extensions. The Drivers for JDBC 2.0 implement similar features for the JDBC 2.0 Scrollable Cursor specification.

Security. The OpenLink client and server components for JDBC encrypt the data sent across the network between the client and server. This provides for enhanced security, particularly over a WAN. This is transparent to the application, and there are no driver specific properties for the application to set.

Version self-checking. The OpenLink client component for JDBC now cross checks version numbers with the server at connect time, thus ensuring that compatible components are always in use. An exception will be thrown when incompatibilities are encountered, this exception will also contain information about the component versions relating to the exception.

Easier Client Version checking

There is now an easier way of checking the OpenLink client for JDBC version. Make sure that the driver is in the classpath and then at your command prompt enter the command:

java openlink.jdbc.Driver

(for JDK 1.x Drivers)

or

java openlink.jdbc2.Driver

(for JDK 1.2 or 1.3/2.0 Drivers)

or

java openlink.jdbc3.Driver

(for JDK 1.4/3.0 Drivers)

or

java openlink.jdbc.Driver

(for 100% Pure Java Drivers for JDK 1.x)

or

java openlink.jdbc2.Driver

(for 100% Pure Java Drivers for JDK 1.2 or 1.3/2.0)

or

java openlink.jdbc3.Driver

(for 100% Pure Java Drivers for JDK 1.4/3.0)

The driver will respond with appropriate version and release number information.

OpenLink Native (UDBC) Bridge for JDBC. UDBC is OpenLink's Universal Database Connectivity solution for cross platform data access. The new OpenLink Client UDBC Bridge for JDBC enables JDBC binding to Native Database Interfaces without going through an ODBC Driver Manager.