New to Progress 9.1D

M

maxtin

New Member
Hi, Im relatively new to Progress coming from a MS SQL Server background. My company is running Progress v9.1D and so far, have two questions:

1-I would like to know what would be a good tool for querying the database? Currently I'm WinSQL using ODBC (MERANT 3.60 32-BIT driver) but want to use a better one. WinSQL is not that bad but I think it is far from what Im used to with MS SQL Server Management Studio. Especially when we want to cancel queries that takes too long (WinSQL stands not responding until query finally returns). Please let me know what you guys use.

2-Are "stored procedures" or similar concept supported by 9.1D? And if yes, any example/documentation I can use? Im did some Google searches about it and what I find (not much) doesnt seem to apply/work with my database version.

Thank you very much

Martin
 
Hi Martin, and welcome. As you will see here, Progress 9.1D is quite old. It was released 11 years ago and reached end of life 8 years ago. Its SQL support is quite limited and doesn't perform well. If at all possible you should look at the feasibility of upgrading to a newer supported release, like 10.2B07 or 11.2.1. Failing that, at least upgrade to the newest 9.x version, which I believe is 9.1E service pack 4.

If you have access to development tools like a procedure editor then your best bet for querying a Progress database efficiently is to learn to write some basic 4GL code rather than using SQL. If you want to try SQL/JDBC you could try a tool like Squirrel. For a GUI query tool on the 4GL side, you could try DataDigger.

The Progress platform does have a concept of stored procedures although I'm not sure whether it was available in 9.1D. You can find and download all the documentation for your release here. Good luck.
 
Note also that any triggers which fire on ABL code don't fire on SQL and vice versa. Bottom line, though 9.1D is ancient and no longer supported and the SQL performance and features a poor imitation of what is available in later releases. You are much better off querying with ABL.
 
Yes, the Progress db has a concept of stored procedures in the SQL engine. BUT as TMH points out, the SQL engine and the 4GL engine do not know about each other.

So depending on what you want to do with stored procedures you might be introducing more problems than you solve.

Progress' real answer to stored procedures is app servers.
 
Thanks for the replies. I forgot to mention that I know 9.1D is old and obsolete (trust me I know!). The thing is this thing was provided and highly-tied to our current ERP software (Vantage by Epicor) so upgrading the DB is pratically impossible so im stuck with it :( . We are currently in the process of upgrading our ERP. Im currently trying to connect with sQuirrel with the provided JBDC driver but failing so far. I can connect JDBC with the "SQL Explorer Tool" (and run SQL queries) provided with Progress though but the tool lacks of functionality. If anyone succeeded with sQuirrel, please post.

What that said, additional questions: Can 4GL/ABL be used on 9.1D? It seems that there only work for later versions.
 
'Can 4GL/ABL be used on 9.1D?' is like saying 'Can C# be used on C# version 4.1' ... 9.1D is a version of 4GL/ABL and all versions of Progress support 4GL/ABL. Their support for SQL is a relative newcomer though for your purposes you can assume it's always been there.
 
If you want to run code that you write (as opposed to what Epicor has already provided) you need some sort of compiler license. For inquiries & extracts a "query runtime" license is sufficient. To update data you need a full 4gl development license. There are also additional development tools that might be needed or wanted if you're going to do more serious work.

To see what licenses are installed run "showcfg".
 
Thanks for the replies Tom. So I get such licence through Progress itself? After I get the license, what tool I should use to run the code?
 
You probably get the licenses from Epicor.

There are various ways to run the code. The simplest is via the command line:

mpro dbname -p procedurename.p

You should also have a "Progress" program group on your start menu. In there should be something that might be called "Client" (it's been a while since I used v9). That should work too. There are probably some tutorials and WBTs floating around somewhere on Progress.com.
 
Ive been suggested by Progress to use DbVisualizer which seems a very good SQL queyring tool. Cant make it connect so far. While hearing back from their support team, anyone succeeded connecting to 9.1D?
 
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