Jim Marion’s post on JDBC made me think a little more.  (By the way, thanks, Jim, for linking me.)  The one disadvantage about accessing the PeopleSoft database via JDBC is that you have to supply the password to make the connection.

I have thought about trying to read the password from the application server or batch server configuration file, but if I remember right it only has the connect id and the connect password.  With the connect password, I might be able to use it to read the Access id and password from the database, but I have would have to be able to unencrypt it.

One advantage that SQL Server might have is that you can use Window’s security.  Assuming that the account running the application server or batch server has access to the database, you could just use the integrated security instead of an actual user name or password.

The advantage that JDBC has is that you don’t have to know the number of fields/columns that you want until run time.  With both the SQL object and SQLExec, you have to have a variable for each field you return or a return that contains all of those fields.

For example, I am trying to loop through a group of tables in a linked server and copy all of their fields to a table in the current database.  I have a problem using INSERT … SELECT, and I have to read the values in and then write them out.  I can’t figure another way to do it other than use JDBC.

Please correct me if I am wrong on any of this.  Maybe these thoughts will give someone else an idea that I overlooked.