DBSourceManager

Introduction

DBSourceManager is a java library that helps with database tasks related to development. Its most important feature is database independence. You will be able to focus in the development of database features and let DBSourceManager deal with the database implementations details.

DBSourceManager is based on DDLUtils and the database model used by DBSourceManager is an extension of the model used by DDLUtils. DDLUtils supports a large list of database engines but all the extensions created in DBSourceManager only work for Oracle and PostgreSQL.

The main goal of DBSourceManager is to aid the developer in the creation and maintenance of Database physical objects and data. The way this works is via an array of XML files which represent database physical objects, or table records. DBSourceManager contains utilities which allow the developer to export its objects into this XML files, and which allow modifications into these XML files to be moved into the database by updating it.

Therefore, the developer can focus on creating and changing its components (either in the database or in the XML files), and DBSourceManager can automatically move the changes in either place to the other.

Architecture

As previously stated, DBSourceManager is based on the ddlutils Apache project. Internally, its structure can be described as a series of classes to handle the Database model, and a series of classes which are related to how the objects and its changes are transformed into RDBMS-specific commands.

You can find more information about the DBSM architecture in this document.

Common tasks

The main tasks which DBSourceManager allows the developer to do are the following:

• export.database: this task generates XML files corresponding with the database physical objects and the Application Dictionary table contents.
• update.database: this task updates the database applying the changes which are necessary to transform it so that it follows the model described in the XML files.
• export.config.script: this task generates a configuration script of the current system. To know more about the configuration scripts, you can read this document.

You can find more information about the Openbravo build tasks which are related to these tasks in this document. These tasks are very related to the modularity concepts in Openbravo, so it's also worth to read more about them. They are covered in great detail here and here.

More information

DBSourceManager uses a mechanism which is called "Model filters", to purposely remove some unwanted objects from the physical database model. These filters can be extended by modules. To know how, you can read this document.