The primary name of an object in the Sybase Data Federation data catalog is represented in the same way as a Unix filename—a forward-slash-separated pathname. Many objects also have shorter qualified names.
Anyone who has used a Windows or Unix file system is familiar with paths used to name files, such as:
C:\windows\winnt\pgm.exe or
/home/local/jdoe/myfile.txt
Data catalog names follow the same convention:
/Shares/myShare/myfile.txt
/System/LocalDomain/Services/DatabaseServices/MyDb/Query1
Every object in a data catalog has a single unique pathname that is its primary name. However, you can use Data Federation links to create secondary names for any object. Unlike hard links in a Unix file system, however, Data Federation hard links are not reference counted—there is a primary link which, when unlinked, causes the underlying object to be deleted.
There are situations where using full pathname syntax to call on a particular object in the data catalog is either not appropriate or inconvenient. For instance, when you invoke a database operation via a JDBC driver, JDBC dictates that you use a dot-separated three-part name syntax for the database operation. In other situations it’s more convenient to use an abbreviated syntax to identify users. We refer to these syntaxes as qualified names—an alternative, usually shorter syntax for the full catalog pathname.
The qualified name for a database operation takes the form shown below; it includes the names of the Data Federation domain, the database operation’s database connector, and the database operation itself:
MyDomain.MyDBconnector.MyDBop
Data Federation expands such three-part names into data catalog paths of the form
/System/Domains/MyDomain/services/database services/MyDBconn/My DBop
If the domain name is omitted from the qualified name, LocalDomain is assumed.
Data Federation recognizes qualified names for the following objects:
There are two ways to specify a data service for the web services API, the CLI, ODBC, or JDBC. You can always use this syntax:
<domain name>.dataservice.<data service name>
In addition, a data service that has been mapped to a table in a metadata model in WorkSpace Data Federation can be accessed using the metadata model and table names:
[<domain name>.]<metadata model name>.<table name>
For example, suppose there is a data service called empDS in the Bedrock domain, and empDS has been mapped to a table called Employee in the HumanResources metadata model. You can access the empDS data service using either of these names:
Bedrock.dataservice.empDS
HumanResources.Employee
When you access a database operation through the web services API, the CLI, ODBC, or JDBC, use the following syntax:
<domain name>.<DB connector name>.<DB operation name>
In addition, as with data services, a database operation that has been mapped to a table in a metadata model in WorkSpace Data Federation can be accessed using the metadata model and table names:
[<domain name>.]<metadata model name>.<table name>
When you access a virtual database operation through the web services API, the CLI, ODBC, or JDBC, use the following syntax:
<domain name>.virtual DB.<virtual DB operation name>
When you access a SQL view through the web services API, the CLI, ODBC, or JDBC, use one of the following syntaxes:
For a SQL view provisioned through a database connector:
<domain name>.<db connector name>.<SQL view name>
For a SQL view generated from a database operation:
<domain name>.<db connector name>.<SQL view name>
For a SQL view generated from a data service:
<domain name>.dataservice.<SQL view name>
For a SQL view generated from a virtual database operation:
<domain name>.virtual DB.<SQL view name>
A database table that has been mapped to a table in a WorkSpace Data Federation metadata model can be accessed using the metadata model and table names:
[<domain name>.]<metadata model name>.<table name>
In the CLI, wherever you are asked to provide a server name, you can pass in just the name—it’s not necessary to give the entire catalog path.
Instead of the full path to a user account, you can provide a qualified name using this syntax:
username@<authservice-name>.<authservice-type>.<domain name>
where <authservice-name> is the name of the grid authentication service to which the user belongs and <authservice-type> is one of Ldap, Grid, Nis. If a domain name is not provided, LocalDomain is assumed. Qualified names for users expand to data catalog paths of this form:
/System/<domain>/Services/AuthServices/<auth-service type>/<authservice-name>/Users/<user-name>
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