About This Document,
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Road Map
Glossary
Index for This Book
Documentation Top
Global Index

Tutorial Roadmap

Cloudscape is a Java application designed to be used and deployed by other Java applications. This tutorial does not teach you the Java programming language or go into great detail about fundamental Java concepts such as classes and objects or inheritance. You might want to do Sun’s online Java tutorial before you do this one if you are not familiar with programming in Java.

Likewise, it is not an exhaustive study of SQL or relational databases, so you may want to consult third-party books after you finish this tutorial in order to learn more about those topics.

The lessons are designed to be done in order. However, you can do a certain amount of skipping around (you may have to go back and do one or more tasks). Every one should do lesson 2, at least, because you set up the tutorial environment in lesson 2. To do lesson 6, you must have done lesson 5 first.

Some lessons can be done as stand-alone examples.

You might want to do this tutorial online (using either the HTML or the PDF version) instead of looking at a printed version. Doing the tutorial online allows you to cut and paste queries, which you will be doing a lot.

  • Lesson 1, “Overview”
    Concepts: Cloudscape product basics: A brief overview of Cloudscape: what it does, how you use it. Relational databases, object-relational databases, and Java. It also introduces you to the fictional JBMSTours tour company and the JBMSTours application and sample database, toursDB, which serve as the foundation for this tutorial.
    Tasks: None.
  • Lesson 2, “Cloudscape Basics and the Sample Database”
    Concepts: Class path, system directory, JDBC driver, connections, shutdowns, the log.
    Tasks: Determine class path. Create working and system directories. Run an application that creates a database. Look at the information log. Create and build toursDB.
  • Lesson 3, “Using Cloudview”
    Concepts: Tables in a relational database, dictionary objects, SQL data types, SQL basics. Working with Cloudview.
    Tasks: View and create dictionary objects.
  • Lesson 4, “Objects and SQL”
    Introduces Java data types, data inspection. More SQL: selects, joins, WHERE clauses. Method invocation.
    Tasks: Inspect data and objects. Execute methods. Execute queries.
  • Lesson 5, “Cloudscape Database Applications”
    Concepts: Cloudscape deployment options, embedded vs. server. JDBC basics. Statements and PreparedStatements. ResultSets.
    Tasks: Run a basic application that uses a statement. Add SQLException checking and the shutdown command. Run BuildATour.
  • Lesson 6, “Working with SQL-J’s Java Extensions”
    Concepts: SQL-J’s Java extensions, database-side JDBC methods, method aliases.
    Tasks: Run CityTest, CityTest2. Execute database-side JDBC methods. Create and run method aliases.
  • Lesson 7, “Programming for Performance”
    Concepts: The performance benefits of prepared statements and stored prepared statements and indexes.
    Tasks: Use ij’s prepared statement feature. Run a Java application comparing the performance of statements and prepared statements. Create a stored prepared statement. Analyze index benefits.
  • Lesson 8, “Virtual Tables, External Data, and Aggregates”
    Concepts: Working with virtual tables within SQL-J statements, importing and exporting data, aggregates (set functions).
    Tasks: Use virtual tables within statements. Create a view. Import data. Work with aggregates. Run GenerateReport.
  • Lesson 9, “Working with Connections and Transactions”
    Concepts: Transactions and locking. Multiple connections to a single database and to more than one database.
    Tasks: Open two named connections in ij. Try to work with the same tables from both connections. Test the locking schema of your product. Run ArchiveData.
  • Lesson 10, “Storing Objects and Classes”
    Concepts: Storing large data such as image and sounds. Storing objects and working with subclasses. Storing classes in the database.
  • Lesson 11, “Servers and Servlets”
    Concepts: Servers, servlets and client applets.
  • Appendix A, “Troubleshooting Common Problems”
    Quick how-tos for typical roadblocks.
  • “Cloudscape Glossary”
    Cloudscape terminology.
  • “Tutorial Index”
    Index to this book.
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Cloudscape Version 3.0
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Copyright © 1998 and 1999 Cloudscape, Inc. All rights reserved.