Re: Informix Questions

Posted in 1996

Nils Myklebust — Tue, 04 Jun 1996 06:38:32 GMT — source: Informix-list mailing list archive (1991-1998)

messwein@erols.com (Mark D. Esswein) wrote: >Does Informix have a variable-length field larger than 256 characters >which can be searched on with LIKE searches? I'm looking for >something that can hold at least 32K of data. I know about the BLOB >field which can store 2GB but I'm told that this field cannot be >searched on with LIKE searches. Sadly, very sadly, no not currently. It will be available in Universal server in the form of a datablade with a lot more functionality than searching with LIKE though. >We don't currently have Informix but we are looking at getting >Informix OnLine Workgroup Server for NT version 7.12. Does this >product support such a field? Again no. >We are going to be using ODBC from our Visual Basic front end to >communicate with the database. Informix says that, in addition to the >RDBMS software, we will need the ESQL/C product on the client in order >to communicate. Is this true? Don't I really only need an ODBC >driver? Which ODBC driver would you recommend? There is absolutly and definitly no need for ESQL/C. This is either a misunderstanding or the usual lack of insight of some Informix people. The misunderstanding might be if you have Windows NT or 95 and want to use an ODBC driver that uses the Informix I-Net compontent for communication. This is only available with ESQL/C. However you most definitly do not want to use I-Net if it can at all be avoided. Select an ODBC driver that is independent of I-Net if you can. All you need is a good ODBC driver. There are many available. You might check: OpenLink at http:\\\\www.openlinksw.com SQL Retriewer at http:\\\\www.vision.sco.com and many others. There may be problems with the NT server component for Informix OnLine that these need. I haven't checked lately if they are available. Ask the supliers. Do also read the May 1996 issue of Visual Basic Programmers Journal. They have found up to 22 times performance difference with different ways of programming database access in Visual Basic. Do it right and you'll get good performance.