Question Interfacing PHP with Progress 8.1

camay123

New Member
Good Day,

I got this client who has a legacy application with stale data on progress.

The db server is on Wint NT4 and the client is on Windows NT terminal.

They want to access their data , for historical research sometimes, in another method then Windows NT terminal client.

Right now, both the server and the terminal are virtualized with VmWare, so Hardware is not a problem.

My initial approach was to extract data from the db, convert it to mysql, and build a php web app so it is centralised on their local network.

I am having a really hard time converting to mysql without losing data integrity.

Instead of this approach, I was wondering if it would be possible to interface php with the windowsNT server db with odbc ? That way, db remains intact, and i can provide an small interface to do their neeeded baisc research ? If this was possible, any quick gist of how it can be done ?
 

TheMadDBA

Active Member
Wow... ancient Progress and ancient OS... this limits most of your options. SQL support with modern versions is quite good (8.1 was released in 1996).

If you can't upgrade to a modern release then dumping the data is probably your best bet.
 

RealHeavyDude

Well-Known Member
Progress V8 did support SQL89 - more or less. This maybe won't sit well with a reasonably recent SQL application.

Nevertheless, apart from needing the ODBC driver, which was a commercial product at that time, as far as I remember, you need to set up a beast that, if I remember correctly, was called the open interbace broker. The Progress V8 did not have a SQL engine - that's what the open interface broker was for. I did this somewhere in 1994 or so. But memory doesn't server me well on this anymore - maybe this KB arcticle can be start for you http://knowledgebase.progress.com/articles/Article/18088.

Still you might have trouble finding documentation and/or installation media for such an ancient software.

Heavy Regards, RealHeavyDude.
 

TheMadDBA

Active Member
I would tend to lean on the "less" side of that for V8 ;-)

I didn't really mention that since actually buying the ODBC plugin for 8.1 just isn't possible any more. I suppose it is possible they already have it on site, but it isn't what I would call stable and easy to use.

Every time I gripe about the deficiencies with SQL in V10 I try and remind myself of the horrors of the OIB/OID and cut it some slack.
 

RealHeavyDude

Well-Known Member
MadDB, please don't be so hard on V8 . At the time when it was it released we all went crazy because gone were the good ole V7 days where ... :)

Seriously - I am completely with you.
Nevertheless - I don't get why in this world would anybody run anything that has any value on V8/NT these days :confused:.

Heavy Regards, RealHeavyDude.
 
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