I. Introduction

II. System Requirements

A. Requirements for All Environments

B. Requirements for the Microsoft Visual Basic Development Environment

C. Requirements for the Visual Cafe Development Environment

D. Requirements for any Java Development Environment

III. Installing Informix Object Translator

A. Administrative Privileges

B. Order of Installation

C. Installing Informix Object Translator

IV. Launching Informix Object Translator

V. Accessing Informix Object Translator Documentation

A. Accessing Documentation from the Product GUI

B. Accessing Documentation from the Start Menu

C. Accessing Documentation from the Object Translator Web Site

VI. Creating and Connecting to a Data Source

A. Creating and Connecting to an ODBC Data Source

B. Connecting to an OLEDB Data Source

C. Connecting to a JDBC Data Source

These installation notes provide system requirements, installation instructions, and other information to help you start using Informix Object Translator, Version 1.10.

This section lists the software and hardware you need to use Informix Object Translator in any development environment and the software you need for the three development environments supported by Version 1.10: Microsoft Visual Basic, Visual Cafe, and any Java development environment.

To use Informix Object Translator, one of the following database servers must be installed on your server computer:

• Informix Dynamic Server 2000, Version 9.2 or higher
• Informix Internet Foundation 2000, Version 9.2 or higher
• Informix Dynamic Server, Version 7.x
• Cloudscape Data Manager, Version 3.0.1 or higher

Your client computer requires the following hardware and software:

• A hard drive with at least 12 MB of available storage space, in addition to whatever is required by your development environment
• Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, with Service Pack 4 or higher, or Microsoft Windows 95, 98, or 2000
• Microsoft Internet Explorer, Version 4.72 or higher (no other Web browser fulfills this requirement)
• Informix Object Translator, Version 1.10

Version 1.10 was tested on these deployment environments, including environments on client computers: Java-supported platforms, Solaris, Linux, and HP.

To use Informix Object Translator with the Microsoft Visual Basic development environment, your client computer requires the following software:

• Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 (Professional Edition or Enterprise Edition) with Visual Studio Service Pack 3
• Informix Client Software Developer's Kit, Version 2.4 or higher
• At least one of the following drivers:
• Informix ODBC Driver, Version 3.30 or higher
  (included in the Typical install of the Informix Client SDK)
• INTERSOLV DataDirect ODBC Driver, Version 3.11 for Informix 9
  (included in the Typical install of the Informix Client SDK)
• Informix OLEDB Provider, Version 2.0
  (available by specifying the Custom install of the Informix Client SDK)

To use Informix Object Translator with the Visual Cafe development environment, your client computer requires the following software:

• Visual Cafe 3.0 (Database Edition, Professional Edition, or Enterprise Suite) or WebGain Visual Cafe 4 (Standard Edition, Expert Edition, or Enterprise Suite)
• Sun Java 2 Platform Standard Edition (JDK 1.2.x)
• Informix JDBC Driver, Version 2.1x or higher, or the CloudScape Data Manager, Version 3.0.1 or higher

To use Informix Object Translator with any Java development environment, your client computer requires the following software:

• Sun Java 2 Platform Standard Edition (JDK 1.2.x)
• Informix JDBC Driver, Version 2.1x or higher, or the CloudScape Data Manager, Version 3.0.1 or higher

This section describes how to install Informix Object Translator.

If your client computer is running Microsoft Windows NT or 2000, you must have administrator privileges to install most of the software products required to use Informix Object Translator.

1. From the Start menu, choose Programs->Administrative Tools->User Manager.

The User Manager dialog box appears.

2. Double-click your user name.

If the User Properties dialog box does not appear, you do not have administrator privileges. Contact your system administrator.

If the User Properties dialog box appears, go to Step 3.

3. Click Groups.
4. Verify that Administrators appears in the Member of list box.

If Administrators does not appear in the list box, you do not have administrator privileges. Contact your system administrator.

If Administrators does appear, you do have administrator privileges and you can proceed with installation.

This section describes the recommended order of installation of software products for the various development environments.

If you are using the Microsoft Visual Basic development environment, install the software products in this order:

1. Visual Basic and the Informix Client SDK in any order
2. Informix Object Translator

If you are using the Visual Cafe development environment, install the software products in this order:

1. Visual Cafe and the Sun JDK in any order
2. Informix JDBC Driver
3. Informix Object Translator

If you are using any Java development environment, install the software products in this order:

1. Sun JDK
2. Informix JDBC Driver
3. Informix Object Translator

This section describes how to install Informix Object Translator. For information on installing the other software products listed in the System Requirements section of these installation notes, see the documentation for those products.

1. Insert either the IIF.2000 CD (if you purchased Informix Internet Foundation 2000) or the Object Translator CD into your client computer's CD-ROM drive.
2. Go to the Object Translator subdirectory and double-click setup.exe. (If you prefer to install using the Meta-Wrapper, you can launch the setup.exe of the Meta-Wrapper. Then check Object Translator on the product installation menu.)

This extracts the Object Translator files and starts an InstallShield wizard that guides you through the installation.

3. When the wizard prompts you for a serial number and key, type the serial number and key provided to you.
4. When the installation is complete, you might need to reboot your computer before you launch Informix Object Translator.

You can launch Informix Object Translator from the Windows Start menu or directly from Microsoft Visual Basic or Visual Cafe.

1. Click Start.
2. Choose Programs->Informix Object Translator 1.10->Object Translator.

• Choose Add-Ins->Informix Object Translator->Object Translator from the Visual Basic menu bar.

• Choose Informix->Object Translator->Object Translator from the Visual Cafe menu bar.

You can access Informix Object Translator documentation from the Informix Object Translator GUI, from the Windows Start menu, and from the product Web site.

After you have installed Informix Object Translator, you can access the following documentation from the product GUI:

• Overview and procedural online help
• Context-sensitive online help for interface elements (such as the text boxes and buttons of dialog boxes or wizards)

This type of help is called What's This? help.

This section describes how to access this documentation.

1. Follow the instructions in the Launching Informix Object Translator section of these installation notes to launch Informix Object Translator.
2. Choose Help->Contents from the Object Translator menu bar.

The Help Topics window appears.

1. In a dialog box or wizard, click the question-mark button in the top right corner of the dialog box.

The What's This? pointer appears (a question mark is added to your arrow-shaped pointer).

2. Click the control (for example, a text box or button) for which you want to display help.

Online help for the selected element appears in a popup window.

3. Click a mouse button or press a keyboard key to close the popup window.

1. If the pane you want information about has multiple pages, click the tab of the page for which you want to display help.
2. Click the arrow-and-question-mark button in the Object Translator toolbar.

The What's This? pointer appears (a question mark is added to your arrow-shaped pointer).

3. Click anywhere in the page or the Object Viewer pane, or click the Properties tab in the Properties Viewer pane.

Online help for the selected page or pane appears in a popup window.

4. Click a mouse button or press a keyboard key to close the popup window.

1. In the Properties Viewer pane, click the property for which you want to display help.
2. Click the arrow-and-question-mark button in the Object Translator toolbar.

The What's This? pointer appears (a question mark is added to your arrow-shaped pointer).

3. Click anywhere in the white portion of the Properties Viewer pane.

Online help for the selected property appears in a popup window.

4. Click a mouse button or press a keyboard key to close the popup window.

After you have installed Informix Object Translator, you can access the following documentation from the Informix Object Translator program group of the Windows Start menu:

• Online help (background topics and procedures)
• Other documentation, including these installation notes, release notes, Java API runtime reference, information on how to use the Informix Object Translator Runtime components, a tutorial, and application development scenarios and examples

Be sure to visit the Object Translator corner of the Informix Developer's Network (IDN) frequently for product news, examples, and other information. The URL for the Object Translator Web site is:

http://www.informix.com/idn-secure/webtools/ot

A data source is a logical name that combines references to a database-management software product, the remote operating system on which the software resides, and any network information necessary to access the software. The data source allows the driver software to find the database server.

Informix Object Translator allows you to access data from any ODBC, OLEDB, or JDBC data source.

You can set up an Informix database as an ODBC data source, and then you can connect to that data source.

For complete information on setting up and using an ODBC driver, see the Informix ODBC Driver Programmer's Guide or the INTERSOLV DataDirect Driver User's Guide for Informix Database Servers.

1. In the Windows Control Panel, double-click the ODBC DataSources icon.

The ODBC Data Source Administrator dialog box appears.

2. To set up a data source just for your own use, use the User DSN page. To set up a data source accessible to other users, click the System DSN tab to display that page.
3. Click Add.

The Create New Data Source dialog box appears.

4. Double-click the driver you want to use: Informix 3.30 32-bit (or higher) or INTERSOLV 3.11 32-bit Informix 9.

The ODBC Driver Setup dialog box appears.

5. Enter the following values into the General and Connection pages of the dialog box:

• Data Source Name-enter a name of your choice.
• Server Name-enter the name of an Informix UNIX or NT database server.
• Host Name-enter the name of the computer hosting the database server.
• Service-enter the name provided by your system administrator.
• Protocol-select onsoctcp if you are using TCP/IP. Check with your system administrator if you are using a different communication protocol.
• Database Name-enter the name of the database that you are setting up as an ODBC data source.
• User Id-enter the login name you are using for this database.
• Password-enter the password for the login name.

1. If you are using Informix ODBC driver, click Test Connection on the Connection page to ensure that the connection works as expected.
2. Regardless of the ODBC driver you are using, on the Advanced page of the dialog box, check Enable Scrollable Cursors.

If you are using INTERSOLV ODBC Driver for Informix, you must also set these options on the Advanced page:

• Set Cursor Behavior to Preserve.
• Uncheck Get DB List from Informix.
• Check Application Using Threads.

If you are using the INTERSOLV ODBC driver for Informix, do not check the Get DB List from Informix option. Doing so can degrade performance.

1. Click OK to close the ODBC Driver Setup dialog box.

The data source is displayed in the User DSN page or the System DSN page of the ODBC Data Source Administrator dialog box.

2. Click OK to close the ODBC Data Source Administrator dialog box.
3. In the Object Translator GUI, connect to the ODBC data source when you use the Model Viewer's Import Model wizard to create a data model.

For information on the Model Viewer, see the "Procedures" section of the Informix Object Translator online help.

Informix Object Translator allows you to access data from any OLEDB data source. You do not need to create an OLEDB data source; instead, you specify the connection information when you create an Object Translator OConnection object in your application.

For complete information on setting up and using the OLEDB driver, see the Informix OLEDB Provider Programmer's Guide.

1. Create an OConnection object in your application, setting the DataSource property to the full pathname of the database.

For example, if you are using Microsoft Visual Basic, you might use the following line of code:

MyOLEDBConn.DataSource = books@cvpc8_ol

MyOLEDBConn is the name of the Object Translator OConnection object you are creating.

DataSource is the property you are setting.

books is the name of the database.

cvpc8_ol is the name of the database server.

2. In the Object Translator GUI, choose the OLEDB driver and select the appropriate database server when you use the Model Viewer's Import Model wizard to create a data model.

For information on the Model Viewer, see the "Procedures" section of the Informix Object Translator online help.

Informix Object Translator allows you to access data from any Informix JDBC data source. You can also connect to Cloudscape via a JDBC connection in client/server mode or in embedded mode. You do not need to create a JDBC data source; instead, you provide a URL that specifies the connection information.

For complete information on setting up and using the Cloudscape Data Manager, see the Cloudscape documentation. For details on the Informix JDBC driver, see the Informix JDBC Driver Programmer's Guide.

1. If you launch Informix Object Translator from Visual Cafe, make sure that the full pathname of the JDBC driver library file, for example, c:\ifxjdbc\lib\ifxjdbc.jar, is included in the CLASSPATH setting in the SC.INI file.
2. In the Object Translator GUI, choose the JDBC driver and provide the connection URL when you use the Model Viewer's Import Model wizard to create a data model.

For information on the Model Viewer, see the "Procedures" section of the Informix Object Translator online help.

If you create additional data models using the JDBC data source, the same URL appears in the JDBC Logon dialog box. If you do not want your user ID and password displayed as part of the URL, do not include them in the URL. Instead, use the User ID and Password text boxes of the JDBC Logon dialog box to specify those values.

If you are using an Informix database server, the URL must follow this format:

jdbc:informix-sqli://[{<ip-address>|<host-name>}:<port-number>][/<dbname>]: \
INFORMIXSERVER=<server>;[user=<usr>;password=<pass>][;name=<value>[;name=<value>]...]



Curly brackets ( { } ) with vertical lines ( | ) denote more than one choice of variable.

Angle brackets (< >) denote a variable value.

Brackets ( [ ] ) denote an optional value.

Words or symbols not enclosed in brackets are required, such as INFORMIXSERVER=.

The following example URL is in the correct format:

jdbc:informix-sqli://pc547dl:1026/Books:informixserver=ol_pc547dl;user=informix; \
password=ifmx_passwd

If you are using a Cloudscape database server in embedded mode (the default), only one instance can run on Cloudscape. The URL for a Cloudscape database server in embedded mode must follow the format shown in this example:

jdbc:cloudscape:C:/Cloudscape_3.0_Eval/demo/databases/picturegallery;create=false

If you are using a Cloudscape database server in client/server mode, the URL must follow the format shown in this example:

jdbc:cloudscape:rmi:E:\cloudscape\demo\databases\toursDB;create=false

Blank spaces are not allowed in the URL.

For an Informix database server, the driver class name is:

com.informix.jdbc.IfxDriver

For a Cloudscape database server in embedded mode (the default), the driver class name is:

COM.cloudscape.core.JDBCDriver

For a Cloudscape database server in client/server mode, the driver class name is:

COM.cloudscape.core.RmiJdbcDriver

After you specify JDBC connection information in the Model Viewer component of Object Translator, the Items to Import dialog box (which displays all available objects in the database) appears. This indicates your connection is working.