Database Emulation

This emulation differs from other emulations in regards to PlanetPress Suite applications. With other emulations, data is pushed either to PReS™ Workflow documents residing on printers or to PReS™ Workflow processes running on servers. But in the case of the database emulation, data must be pulled from the data source.

Like with every other emulation, it is possible to send a Design Document set up to use the database emulation to a printer. But contrary to documents that use the other emulations, you cannot send a raw data file to the document and expect the document and data to merge and print automatically. In this case someone or something must query the database and extract the data that will populate the Design Document.

We can imagine two basic scenarios. In the first one, we can imagine someone in a print shop who needs to use data from a database to print a bunch of personalized letters using PlanetPress Design. That person opens a Design document and uses the Data Selector to select a database. By making a connection to the database, its structure can be accessed and it becomes possible to determine how data is to be pulled into PlanetPress Design. The process actually pulls data into PlanetPress Design and lets the print shop employee visualize and print the data on the personalized letters.

The second scenario involves PReS™ Workflow. In this case, PlanetPress Database action task takes the place of the print shop employee and performs the database query automatically. The task generates a PlanetPress Design compatible data file that it passes to the following task, be it another action task, or any output task.

Bear the following in mind:

The person or plugin performing the query must have full access to the database.
The data is extracted at the time of the query. A new query must be performed whenever the data needs to be updated.
Any changes to the structure of the database may have an impact on automated data querying tasks.
You must have the proper ODBC driver installed to use this emulation.

Database emulation supports SQL ANSI 92 or higher, and supports the following data types: string, integer, floating point, all date formats, and text-only MEMO. It does not support any binary data types such as Binary Large Object (BLOB), images, sound files, and MEMO data that includes binary data.

Database emulation requires version 2.5 or higher of Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC), including JET 4.0, and you can save database emulation configurations to a file.

To set up a database emulation:

Choose Debug | Select
In the Data Selector, locate the Emulation box and select Database.
Click the Database Emulation Configuration button.
Associate a database.

Microsoft Access Database or dBase file

Database: Enter the path of the Microsoft Access database or dBase file, or click the Browse button to the right of the box to navigate to, the database file. Recall that a Microsoft Access database file bears the extension .mdb, and a dBase file bears the extension .dbf. If the file is a dBase file, you must specify the folder that contains the .dbf file. The folder in this case is considered to be the database, and the individual .dbf file a table in the database. Once you enter the path, the Table/query name box updates to reflect the tables and queries available in the selected database.

ODBC Data Source

ODBC Data Source: Click to connect to an ODBC Data Source. Use the Select Data Source dialog box that appears to select an existing Data Source or set up a new one. When you exit the Select Data Source dialog box, the Database box updates to display the connection string it uses to connect to the database, and the Table/query name box updates to reflect the tables and queries available in the selected database.
Click Edit SQL to create the SQL query by hand to define the SQL query that retrieves the data your document requires.
Set the properties that define a record set.

Condition: Select the condition that signals the end of a record set. Three possibilities exist: create a new record set for each record, create a new record set after every x records, or create a new record set when the value of a specific field changes.

Sort on condition field: Select this if the condition you set is to create a new record set when the value of a specific field changes, and you want to sort the records before applying that condition.

Maximum records per record set: Set either the number of records in each record set, or the maximum number of records in a record set. An individual record set can contain a maximum of 4000 records.
Set the number of records you want to include in the sample data file. The number of records you set should provide a reliable sample to ensure your document executes properly with any of the data it may encounter at runtime.

All: Select to include all records in the database in the sample data file.

Records: Select to define the range of records you want to include in the sample data file. Use the box that

To enter an SQL query:

In the Database Connection dialog box, click Edit SQL.
If necessary, click Show Tables to display, in the Tables area, a list of the tables available in the database.
In the SQL Query Entry area, enter the SQL query. The following two sample queries both retrieve all the fields in the Orders table. The second sorts the resulting records on the Date field.
```
SELECT * FROM [Orders]

SELECT * FROM [Orders] ORDER BY [Date]
```
Click Test SQL to verify the query you entered is a valid SQL query.
Define whether you want PlanetPress Design to automatically enclose table names and field names in square brackets.

Alternate syntax(not recommended): Select to prevent PlanetPress Design from automatically enclosing the names of any database tables and fields that appear in the SQL query in square brackets when it exits the advanced SQL Statement dialog box.
Client side cursor: Select to download result sets to client computer running the SQL query.
Click OK to return to the Database Connection dialog box.