Connecting to Progress database from Mac OSX

Question

Does anyone know how to connect to a Progress 9.1E database from a Mac (or even from Linux)?

I can connect successfully from Windows but the JDBC driver requires that the Progress install directory and it's bin directory are in the path.

It seems to be one product that is firmly under Google's radar. OpenLink has an OSX driver but it is a paid for product, which is fine, but as this is for development use only I'd rather find a free alternative.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You need Progress SQL92 Client Access, Mac is unsupported, RedHat, SuSe and several flavours of Unix are.

See Progress Version 9 product availability matrix, look for ODBC and JDBC.

As far as I know there are only two companies in the world that produce ODBC/JDBB connectivity drivers for Progress DB: OpenLink and DataDirect (now acquired by Progress).

Another way is to connect using Progress AppServer, then you'd be able to run Progress 4GL (or ABL - Advanced Business Language) queries/logic on AppServer and output resulting datasets to Java.

The third way is to migrate the data (if this is an option).

Other options include exposing DB via WebSpeed (web application server) or using sockets, files, getting OpenEdge and exposing the data through 4GL web services etc. This will really depend on your data access needs. However all of these methods are non-trivial and require Progress platform and 4GL expertise.

Answer 2

If you upgrade your progress to Openedge (Progress v10) its jdbc driver doesn't require any progress related installation, because it's 100% pure java (type 4 driver), so you can access Openedge DB from any OS that supports java.

Answer 3

I did a development on MAC with ProgreSQL using OpenLink ODBC drivers about 4 years ago. Don't remember too many problems but it introduces commercial problems (costs!).... for deployment.

http://developer.apple.com/internet/opensource/postgres.html

Wait a minute!! that was PostgreSQL which isn't the same thing is it. I can't delete this answer because there is useful info in the comments below.