Can SQL Server work with a Paradox table?

[eselk]

I've never really setup or used MS SQL Server (just a couple hours, one
day, several months ago). I think MS SQL Server has the ability to use
"linked tables", like MS Access does. Is this correct? What I want to
do is have an MS SQL Server setup, which compatible applications can
talk with, but I want the data to come from a Paradox database. I can
use any MS SQL version, whatever would work best. I'm not sure about
the Paradox version, I know it is an old DOS version. I can't just
convert the data to another format, because Paradox still needs to use
it.

I tried using MS Access before, with ODBC drivers it *should* be able
to work with the Paradox data. However, I ended up with lots of data
corruption. I'm hoping MS SQL Server may work better, and not corrupt
the Paradox data everytime it is updated.

[Stu]

It's been a while since I've used Paradox, but you should be able to
what you want. I would find the appropriated ODBC drive from Paradox,
rather than use the generic MS drivers. That was probably the cause of
your corruption issues in the past.

How real-time does your data access need to be? If there can be some
delay, you may consider using an import process to fetch the data from
Paradox and convert it to MSSQL; that may reduce locking issues on the
Paradox side.

HTH,
Stu

[eselk]

Thanks for the reply. The data access needs to be real-time, so any
import/export or even synchronization would not work.

I'll try again, since I don't remember all of the details. I'm pretty
sure over my several attempts I tried both the MS drivers, and the BDE
drivers (Borland, but as far as I know those are the only Paradox
drivers, since Corel (current Paradox owners) haven't really updated
Paradox or done any work on it). I only tried with Access though, so
I'll see if I have better luck with MSSQL.

[Stu]

For the project I worked on integrating Paradox with SQL Server, I
ended up buying a copy of Paradox to get the ODBC drivers that came
with it. It was some third-party driver (and it was years ago), but
they worked great. Of course, I wasn't doing real-time integration; it
happened every 5 minutes or so.

Not sure that helps; I tried googling for the vendor we used (I think
it was DataDirect, but not sure). All I remember was that it was
cheaper to get a single copy of Paradox than to get the server licence
from the vendor.

Stu

[eselk]

Thank you, and that is exactly what I found. After reading the last
post I decided to try again. This time I found that ODBC driver that
comes with Paradox (by Intersolv) and that fixed the data corruption
which I was getting with the Microsoft driver. Great!

I just started to play around with it. Most areas seem pretty fast.
The only weird thing, which I'm hoping I can find a way around, is that
it takes about 5 seconds to enter "edit mode", for example:

1. Open Linked table in Access (opens really fast, like in Paradox)

2. Browse through records (really fast), then start to edit one of the
records

.... Access hangs for about 5 seconds, then enters "edit mode"...

3. Edit the record and save it (really fast), edit aditional records
(really fast).

4. Close table, then reopen...

5. First edit has that 5 second delay again.

I'm sure it has to do with locking. In Paradox it takes less than a
second to enter edit mode (a split second), so hopefully there is a way
to get the ODBC driver to work just as fast. Not sure if it is an ODBC
thing, or Access, but I guess I could check by using some other
utilities which can use the ODBC driver (like Borland's "Database
Desktop").

I haven't brought SQL into the picture yet, but I might, for one thing
I'll only need one server license for the ODBC driver, instead of one
for each workstation if I only use Access.

Stu wrote:

For the project I worked on integrating Paradox with SQL Server, I
ended up buying a copy of Paradox to get the ODBC drivers that came
with it. It was some third-party driver (and it was years ago), but
they worked great. Of course, I wasn't doing real-time integration; it
happened every 5 minutes or so.

Not sure that helps; I tried googling for the vendor we used (I think
it was DataDirect, but not sure). All I remember was that it was
cheaper to get a single copy of Paradox than to get the server licence
from the vendor.

Stu