If you want to parse data, you need to have some sources of data. Sometimes you get data from files, in other cases from databases or other data sources.
Now we will describe how you can work with the resources that are not files. In order to work with them, you need to make a connection to such data sources. By now we will describe only how to work with databases, some of the more advanced data sources using connections will be described later.
When you want to work with databases, you can do it in two following ways: Either you have a client on your computer that connects with a database located on some server by means of some client utility . The other way is to use a JDBC driver. Now we will describe the database connections that use some JDBC drivers. The other way (client-server architecture) will be described later when we are talking about components.
As in the case of metadata, database connections can be internal or external (shared). You can create them in two ways.
Each database connection can be created as:
Internal: See Internal Database Connections.
Internal database connection can be:
Externalized: See Externalizing Internal Database Connections.
Exported: See Exporting Internal Database Connections.
External (shared): See External (Shared) Database Connections.
External (shared) database connection can be:
Linked to the graph: See Linking External (Shared) Database Connections.
Internalized: See Internalizing External (Shared) Database Connections.
Database Connection Wizard is described in Database Connection Wizard.
Access password can be encrypted. See Encrypting the Access Password.
Database connection can serve as resource for creating metadata. See Browsing Database and Extracting Metadata from Database Tables.
Remember that you can also create database table directly from metadata. See Create Database Table from Metadata.