Accessing external data

ODABA supports accessing external data via property and value handles, i.e. using the same functionality as for accessing the database. External data may be defined as ODABA data type with some restrictions caused by the external data format. ODABA also allows defining mapping schemata mapping database data types to external data types. Last but not least, ODABA supports data exchange with several external storage types.

Property handle functionality may also be used for accessing external files (XML, JSON, OIF, EFDS and CSV). External file structures may be defined in the dictionary or in the external file (e.g. as extended header in a CSV file or as separate file description).

ODABA also provides a Directory class that allows accessing directories and files via property handles.

An ORM allows running ODABA applications based on relational databases. An entity-relationship model is created from the database schema, which may be loaded into an ORACLE, MS SQL Server or MySQL database. Data is stored in the relational database, but an OR mapping layer provides additional features, which are not available in relational databases.

Running an ODABA application based on relational databases does not support extended features as versioning or extension properties.

ODABA provides import/export functions for storing/loading data from external files. File formats supported are CSV (no names, no hierarchies), ESDF (no names), XML, OIF and JSON.

ODABA also supports defining an exchange mapping schema in order to import/export data partially and with different names and hierarchies in external files.