ORAFlex™ is Mertech's Oracle database driver that allows existing DataFlex® applications to connect with an Oracle® database server. ORAFlex uses Oracle's Oracle Call Interface (OCI) for communicating and accessing the Oracle database. ORAFlex communicates directly with the Oracle server through Oracle's network interface called SQL*Net. SQL*Net is an Oracle Corporation product used to connect user and server processes on different machines on a network or between user processes on the same machine through a shared network dispatcher.

This is more efficient and faster than using an ODBC based solution because the direct driver allows greater flexibility in exploiting native optimization schemes of the Oracle server and less complication in application deployment by not requiring you to configure a data source for each workstation.

ORAFlex has been designed with the needs of the DataFlex community in mind especially for issues like support for DataFlex 2.3 applications, application deployment, year 2000 issues, support for partial overlaps, support for auto-increment field as primary index, etc. ORAFlex allows you to move to a mainstream database without changing the way your application works and still gives you the performance you need to compete with other tools in the client/server market. A number of our large corporate customers have concluded that after extensive testing, the ORAFlex and DataFlex® combination is an economical and technically sound option to use without rewriting their entire application with different programming tool.

Product Highlights

• Support for overlap/partial overlap fields
• Complete support for case sensitive indexes
• Complete support for mixed ascending and descending index segments
• Preservation of RECNUM values during data migration
• High-speed data migration
• Record Locking instead of file locking
• Complete Support for Transaction
• Access views and synonyms as DataFlex files
• Seamless integration with existing TABLES and VIEWS by automatic generation of FD and TAG files from existing tables and views
• NO CODE RECOMPILATION! The table structure is exactly like DataFlex!
• Support for DataFlex restructure commands
• Detailed migration report
• Generate SQL Script for creating tables and indexes

Required Components

To be able to run a DataFlex program from any platform and connect to an Oracle database server, the user needs to install or have access to the Oracle SQL*Net client, properly configured to access the Oracle server. Mertech's driver and license file is installed in the same directory as the DataFlex runtime and must also be accessible to the program.

Current Driver Release

• version 10.0.3.11 updated May 20, 2009

Supported Oracle Version

• Oracle® 9i and above, Oracle Express Edition

Supported Platform and DataFlex Versions

• Visual DataFlex® 5 and above, DataFlex® 3.1c and above
• Windows, Linux, HP and AIX
• Please contact us for additional Unix platforms