In most teller environments, there is a need to access existing database tables in order to retrieve or update information. When an existing database is being used by other applications, there must be an easy way to request information without having to modify the database definition and structure. The Database Table Mapping service enables any application to connect to a specific database and use an existing table within the database. It implements a common application interface that integrates the different database access services provided by the toolkit, thus making application development simpler.
Because this service is intended to be used with existing database tables, it has the following two characteristics that make it different from the other database services provided by the toolkit:
1 There is no class to create the tables. However, a JDBCServicesAdministrator class is provided to register and drop stored database procedures; these may later be executed by the JDBCTable service.
2 An application using this service must properly set the primary key column value for any record to be inserted in the database table. (With Electronic Journal or Store, this is automatically done by the service.)
The concrete database access class JDBCTable provides the methods to access a database table. This class implements the TableService interface and extends the JDBCService class, which implements the interface DatabaseConnect, including all methods related to the database connection. The JDBCTable class can be subclassed if additional functionality is required. The current implementation, as its name indicates, uses the JDBC interface.