Adding a New Driver

You can add any one of the predefined drivers available under Runtime | Databases | Drivers.
After you add a driver, you can test the driver to ensure that it is compatible with Database Explorer.

To add your own driver:

  1. Right click on Drivers or a specific driver under Drivers.
  2. Choose Add driver. A dialog appears to enable you to add a new driver.
  3. Specify a Driver name for the new driver. The IDE uses this name only for display purposes.
  4. In the Driver URL, provide the fully qualified driver class name, for example:
    COM.pointbase.jdbc.jdbcUniversalDriver.
    The driver (usually in a JAR or ZIP archive) must be in the Forte for Java CLASSPATH..
  5. In the Database URL prefix, enter a template for the URLs of connections you want to make
    using this driver. The template can represent a URL that is not the real URL; you can complete the URL later
    when you connect. For example, you can now add jdbc:pointbase://embedded[:]/
  6. Click OK to add the new driver to the list.
  7. Later, you can remove drivers by selecting them in the Explorer and pressing Delete,
    or you can open the
    property sheet and modify their configuration.

Note: Adding a new driver just creates a template for new connections; Forte for Java does not actually try to
use that driver or check to make sure it is the correct one until a connection is made using the driver..

To test a connected driver:

  1. Right-click on the driver or connection in the Explorer and select Test Driver from the context menu.
  2. In the dialog that appears, enter the connection information (database URL, user name,
    and password) and click OK.
  3. If all values shown in the output correspond with the actual database, you can use the drive.
  4. If an "unsupported exception" appears, test to make sure that the data displayed in the output window is
    valid -- for example, that the number of tables or columns in the table corresponds with the actual data
The system returns the "Internal test driver failed" message whenever it finds a return value of 0
or an exception. If your database is empty or a table has no foreign references, the driver might
not be the problem.
See also
Using a Database Adaptor to Replace Missing Metadata
Connecting to a Database
Connecting to Unsupported Databases

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