Working with Stored Procedures

Creating and editing Stored Procedure Resources 2

Script statements to invoke a stored procedure. 4

This document describes how to use Stored Procedure Resources to call stored procedures and functions defined in a database. Ebase Xi provides support for all the various types of parameters used as input and output including: IN parameters, OUT parameters, INOUT parameters, RETURN parameter, QUERY parameters. Please note that Ebase Xi does not currently provide support for stored procedures that return multiple result sets.

To access stored procedures and functions with overloaded parameter definitions, it is necessary to create one Stored Procedure Resource for each combination supported by the DBMS. Overloading could be implemented as shown in the following example:

Database Ebase

PROC1(A, B, C)	PROC1_A	invokes PROC1 with parameters A, B, C
PROC1(A, B, C, D)	PROC1_B	invokes PROC1 with parameters A, B, C, D

What is a Stored Procedure Resource?

A Stored Procedure Resource represents a call to a single database stored procedure or function. When creating a Stored Procedure Resource you need to specify the name of the stored procedure or function in the database and the name and type of all input and output parameters. These parameters are then mapped to form fields in the same way as for all other Ebase Xi resources.

A stored procedure is invoked with the FPL exec command or API StoredProcedureResource.exec() method. These statements are used for all calls to a stored procedure regardless of the function performed by the stored procedure.

To use a Stored Procedure Resource in a form, it is necessary to go through the following steps.

1. Configure the connection to the database.

2. Create the Stored Procedure Resource.

3. Add the resource to the Resources View of a form.

4. Map the form fields to the resource fields i.e. the stored procedure parameters.

Steps 1, 3, 4 are described in Database Resources. This documentation describes only those processes that are unique to stored procedures.

Creating and editing Stored Procedure Resources

Right click in the designer tree and select New > Stored Procedure Resource.

The following example shows a Stored Procedure Resource named FIND_APPROVER which has been imported from an Oracle database and has 4 IN parameters and 5 OUT parameters.

· The Database Connection dropdown list specifies the database connection to be used and contains a list of all defined Database Connections to which the Ebase Xi system has access. The special entry **Dynamic can be chosen to indicate that the database name will be supplied dynamically at runtime.

· The stored procedure name field is the name of the stored procedure or function in the database.

· The statement field is read only and is provided to show the format of the call statement that the system builds to invoke the stored procedure.

· The resource fields table contains all the parameters used by the stored procedure.

· Field name must match the name of the parameter within the stored procedure or function.

· The field type should be set to match the database parameter type. The values available in the dropdown are the types from the JDBC standard. See your database documentation for how these map to your database types. The system makes use of these types when converting the value received from the database to the mapped field within the form. If an illegal mapping is detected, you will receive an error message.

· The length and decimal digits are only used by Ebase when resource fields are imported into a form, and then they set the corresponding length and decimal digit specifications for a form field.

· Required should be checked for IN parameters that must have a value. If required is checked and no value exists, a runtime error message is generated. If required is not checked and the field has no value, a null is passed to the DBMS.

· The field description can be used to enter meaningful information about the field. This information is visible to the Ebase user when building the form field mappings.

Parameter type must match the corresponding type of the stored procedure or function parameter. The following values are available from the dropdown list displayed by clicking on the field:

IN	IN parameter
OUT	OUT parameter
INOUT	INOUT parameter
RETURN	The single RETURN parameter from a function
QUERY	Result set query parameter made available by the stored procedure or function

Parameter position. All parameters except QUERY parameters must be numbered in the same sequence as they appear in the stored procedure or function in the database. If a RETURN parameter exists it must be number 1. All other parameters should be numbered sequentially.

Stored Procedure Resource Toolbar

Save: saves the Stored Procedure Resource.

Runs the database schema wizard to import a stored procedure directly from the database. This has the advantage that all parameter names and types will be correctly set. Please note that different database systems vary in behaviour and implementation of stored procedures and functions, and that the data imported can also vary, e.g. parameter lengths may not be available.

Maintain Documentation

Show information: dates for creation, last update and import of this Stored Procedure Resource.

Shows this help page.

Script statements to invoke a stored procedure

The EXEC script command is used to invoke a stored procedure resource. e.g.

FPL:

API based language (Javascript):

exec CLIENT_CHECK;

See FPL Script Command Syntax for more information.

resources.CLIENT_CHECK.exec();

Supported database column types

All database column types are supported with the exception of the following: all binary types, e.g. BIT, BINARY, LONGBINARY, IMAGE etc, plus CLOB, BLOB, REF, STRUCT, JAVA_OBJECT.

SQL Server Stored Procedures Support

Microsoft SQL Server allows you to write a stored procedure with spaces in the name, e.g. ‘update MyTable’. To support invoking stored procedures with spaces in the name using the Ebase stored procedure resource dialog, wrap the stored procedure name with ‘[‘ and ‘]’,

Add [ and ] to the beginning and end of the stored procedure name textfield:

[update MyTable]

Wrapping the name using [ and ] is standard syntax recognized by SQL Server when exec a stored procedure with spaces in the name, e.g. exec [Update MyTable] ‘data1’, ‘data2’ etc..