JDBC Improvements

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This section describes the improvements offered in this release of the Pervasive JDBC driver.

Encryption Support

With the addition of wire-encryption as a feature of the communications layer, support for two new connection URL options has been added. Table 3-6 explains the new options.

 
Table 3-6 New JDBC Connection URL Options

Option	Description
encrypt	Determines whether the JDBC driver should use Encrypted Network Communications, also known as wire encryption. Values: always, never If this option is not specified, the driver reflects the server's setting, the equivalent of the value "if needed." If the value always is specified, the JDBC driver will use encryption or else return an error if wire encryption is not allowed by the server. If the value never is specified, the JDBC driver will not use encryption and will return an error if wire encryption is required by the server.
encryption	Determines the minimum level of encryption allowed by the JDBC driver. Values: low, medium, high Default: medium The meaning of these values depends on the encryption module used. With the default encryption provider, these values correspond to 40-, 56-, and 128-bit encryption, respectively.

Requirements

To use wire encryption with the JDBC driver, another JAR file is required to be in your classpath. This JAR, jpscs.jar, is installed in the PVSW\bin directory by default. This JAR uses Java Cryptography Extensions (JCE) which comes standard with Java 2 SDK v1.4. It is also available as a separate download for Java 2 SDK 1.3 and 1.2 (see http://java.sun.com/products/jce).

Example

The following example specifies that the JDBC driver always requires encryption, and it requires at least the low level of encryption, or it returns an error code.

jdbc:pervasive://host/demodata?encoding=UTF-8&encrypt= always&encryption=low 

Standard URL Syntax

The JDBC connection URL syntax has been improved to allow for more standard syntax. This improvement is best demonstrated by example:

Old Syntax

jdbc:pervasive://host/demodata;encoding=UTF-8;encrypt=always  
  

    
 (notice the non-standard semi-colon separator ";")
  

New Syntax

jdbc:pervasive://host/demodata?encoding=UTF-8&encrypt=always  
  

    
 (notice the standard URL separator "?" and parameter separator "&")
  

While both forms will be supported for the foreseeable future, the new syntax is recommended because it is more standard.