Database Question From Newbie

[Jan Schenkel]

--- John Miller <johnmiller1950 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Jan,
> 
> Thanks for your help. I deleted the line in my code
> that set the 
> location of the driver, and I was able to connect to
> the database.
> 

Glad you got it working, John :-)

> Just a question for clarification:  If Revolution
> uses its own  ODBC 
> driver to access my database, then why do I have to
> designate a 
> database driver when I set up my DNS in Windows XP? 
> Is the Revolution 
> driver a bridge that talks to my software's ODBC
> driver which in turn 
> talks to the database?  Or, does the Revolution ODBC
> driver by-pass my 
> software's ODBC driver altogether?
> 

You still need the ODBC driver for your specific
database ; Revolution has its own native (non-ODBC)
drivers for some databases, but can also connect to
the Data sources that you setup in your ODBC Control
Panel.

> 
> My next project is to build a query that reads my
> inventory file and 
> extracts 4 columns. The names of these columns in
> the database are 
> "itemNum", "itemName", "class" & "cost".  I don't
> understand how to 
> build a query that does this. I've read all the
> documentation on this 
> within Revolution, but I must be dense or something.
> 

Though it is hard to say without knowing the innards
of your database schema, one way to find out how this
works is by looking at the query that you made in
Excel using the point-and-click method provided by
Query.

If you save the query to a file on the hard disk, you
can open it in a simple text editor like Notepad, and
find out what the SQL-suery is ; it probably looks
something like :
  SELECT itemNum, itemName, class, cost
  FROM articles

> I would be grateful for any help you have time to
> offer.
> 

For more information on SQL, I suggest surfing the web
for tutorials ; I picked up an old one a while ago
that Geoff Canyon found, and am hosting it at :
<http://www.professionalsoftware.be/SQLTutorial/SqlTutorial.html>

Hope this helped,

Jan Schenkel.

=====
"As we grow older, we grow both wiser and more foolish at the same time."  (La Rochefoucauld)

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