Adobe ColdFusion 8

Connecting to other data sources

Use the settings in the following table to connect ColdFusion to data sources through JDBC drivers that do not appear in the drop-down list of drivers:

Setting

Description

CF Data Source Name

The data source name (DSN) that ColdFusion uses to connect to the data source.

JDBC URL

The JDBC connection URL for this data source.

Driver Class

The fully qualified class name of the driver. For example, com.inet.tds.TdsDriver. The JAR file that contains this class must be in a directory defined in the ColdFusion classpath.

Driver Name

(Optional) The name of the driver.

Username

The user name that ColdFusion passes to the JDBC driver to connect to the data source if a ColdFusion application does not supply a user name (for example, in a cfquery tag).

Password

The password that ColdFusion passes to the JDBC driver to connect to the data source if a ColdFusion application does not supply a password (for example, in a cfquery tag).

Description

(Optional) A description for this connection.

Connection String

A field that passes database-specific parameters, such as login credentials, to the data source.

Limit Connections

Specifies whether ColdFusion limits the number of database connections for the data source. If you enable this option, use the Restrict Connections To field to specify the maximum.

Restrict Connections To

Specifies the maximum number of database connections for the data source. To use this restriction, you must enable the Limit Connections option.

Maintain Connections

ColdFusion establishes a connection to a data source for every operation that requires one. Enable this option to improve performance by caching the data source connection.

Timeout (min)

The number of minutes that ColdFusion MX maintains an unused connection before destroying it.

Interval (min)

The time (in minutes) that the server waits between cycles to check for expired data source connections to close.

Disable Connections

If selected, suspends all client connections.

Login Timeout (sec)

The number of seconds before ColdFusion times out the attempt to log in to the data source connection.

CLOB

Select to return the entire contents of any CLOB/Text columns in the database for this data source. If not selected, ColdFusion retrieves the number of characters specified in the Long Text Buffer setting.

BLOB

Select to return the entire contents of any BLOB/ Image columns in the database for this data source. If not selected, ColdFusion retrieves the number of characters specified in the BLOB Buffer setting.

LongText Buffer

The default buffer size; used if Enable Long Text Retrieval (CLOB) is not selected. The default value is 64000 bytes.

BLOB Buffer

The default buffer size; used if the BLOB option is not selected. The default value is 64000 bytes.

Allowed SQL

The SQL operations that can interact with the current data source.

For example, you can use the Other Data Sources option to define a data source for DB2 OS/390 or iSeries, using the following settings:

JDBC URL
jdbc:datadirect:db2://dbserver:portnumber
Driver class
.jdbc.Driver
Driver name
DB2
Username
A user defined to the database
Password
The password for the username
Connection string
Specify one connection string for the first connection, and then modify it for use in subsequent connections, as follows:
  1. On the initial connection, specify LocationName, CollectionId, CreateDefaultPackage, and sendStringParametersAsUnicode (with no spaces) as the following example shows:
    LocationName=SAMPLE;CollectionId=DEFAULT;CreateDefaultPackage=TRUE;sendStringParametersAsUnicode=false

Note: If the database uses Unicode, specify true for the sendStringParametersAsUnicode parameter.

  1. On subsequent connections, specify LocationName, CollectionId, and sendStringParametersAsUnicode, as the following example shows:
    LocationName=SAMPLE;CollectionId=DEFAULT;sendStringParametersAsUnicode=false

Note: DB2 OS/390 refers to all supported versions of DB2 on OS/390 and z/OS platforms; DB2 iSeries refers to all supported versions of DB2 on iSeries and AS/400.

For more information on DB2, see Connecting to DB2 Universal Database.