T4Bi KnowledgeFrame FAQ


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How We Do It > KnowledgeFrame > FAQ

FAQ

1. What is the level of KF support for database XXX?

KF framework code interacts with the database via a JDBC driver. Any database supporting ANSI SQL 97 or better, and with a JDBC 2.0 or higher driver, can be used. There is an abstract class, com.t4bi.kf.runtime.database.DbConnection, which is used by business logic and UI for all database activities. To support a database, a literal subclass must be implemented, and the database connection parameters in web.xml must be set up to use that particular subclass. At the moment, the only working and tested literal subclass works for Oracle 8i, 9i and 10g (OracleDbConnection), other subclasses can be written on demand. The default mapping of Business Objects ("Entities") uses relatively simple constructs – single-table SELECTs, inner joins, single-record INSERT / UPDATE / DELETE. However, the application can add SQL predicates and constructs to extend the database access logic for its business objects – if the developers wish the application to remain portable between databases, they must avoid using SQL syntax specific to particular database engines (e.g. the CONNECT BY for hierarchical queries in Oracle).

2. What is needed to deploy a KF application to application server XXX?

KF applications are standard Web applications, and can be bundled for deployment either as standard WAR (Web Archive) file, or as "expanded archive" set of files (e.g. for Tomcat). If the deployment standard for an organization is the EAR (Enterprise Archive) format, that is a clean super-set of WAR information, and KF applications can use it as well – however, the EJB definition sections will remain empty. Any application server supporting servlet 2.0 or higher can be used – KF has been deployed on Tomcat, BEA WebLogic, Oracle iAS, IBM WebSphere and Macromedia JRun. The deployment CLASSPATH must contain the JDBC driver(s) used by the application, the libraries for the iText libraries for Excel / PDF output (see http://www.sourceforge.net/itext) with dependencies (Xerces, XML-APIS), JAR files for commons-logging / Log4J, and any specialized libraries needed by the application (e.g. any application using the Spell Check Attribute extension must purchase a the WebSpell runtime license from Keyoti, http://www.keyoti.com).