Using php with Datatel/UniData via UniObjects

[Rich Harrington]

This website is a great resource.

I've been coding php for a few weeks now and recently was able to start using UniObjects so that I can now code directly from/to our Datatel/UniData ERP. Our web design group is thinking up a new student portal, and it will be great to be able to provide widget services that can talk to the Administrative systems...

I'd love to hear from all y'all who are doing, need to do, or want to do the same sort of thing in a UniData world...

[Richard Orelup]

Please get me link cause I would love to hear more because I was originally told I couldn't directly access this information so we end up getting reports dumped out that we then process and put into a mysql database nightly to get this kind of information. If I can get this information in real time and from the source I would just be on a different planet of happiness.

[Rich Harrington]

php/UniObjects/UniData - phase one

Setting up for a php/UniObjects/Unidata application isn't trivial but once it's happening it's great! You may need some cooperation from your UniData administrator because you will only have the access and permissions that are set up for the datatel logon user account that you use...it's good to have one with R/W access to the whole application instance...

UniObjects uses the UniData RPC listener to log on and transfer data, so that also has to be running on the Colleague box...normally, RPC is running but you may need to check with your UD Admin to make sure.

Uniobjects comes in three flavors, Windows, dotNet, and Java so you will need register the right one for the OS on the machine that is connecting to the Colleague box. I'm using a Windows box running Apache for windows, though the actual webserver should not matter - as long as you can run php. Be aware though that any instructions are all base on the regular Windows flavor of UniObjects. If you're running a Linux webserver you may need to use the UniObjects forJava...

The first step is to download and install UniObjects, which is contained in the IBM UniData client library. Technically the library is available for download here:

http://www14.software.ibm.com/download/data/web/en_US/trialprograms...

and the ''Using UniObjects' manual is available here:

http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/u2/pubs/library/71unidata/

That said, you may have to register with IBM's tech connect in order to access those links - both those links are live for me as of 8/6/08, but I have previously registered with IBM. If you have any trouble downloading the files you may need to first register with TechConnect to access the links.

If you are Colleague school and personally have Answernet access, you can register for IBM's Tech Connect directly from the Datatel website:

http://www.datatel.com/support/unidata_database_U2techconnect.cfm

[Rich Harrington]

Hey Richard - have any luck getting a working environment set up?

[Richard Orelup]

Haven't had a chance to try it out yet. The project it would actually be used on was pushed out a while ago so just have this info sitting around for a rainy day when I have some play time :)

Thanks for checking up.

[Brandon Tilley]

I was just telling my boss this morning that it would be awesome to be able to access the Unidata backend directly through PHP. My very first Google search on the subject brought me here. I would love any information you could throw my way about this!

[Rich Harrington]

I just 'finished' <= (yeah right) my second production application and I'm pretty happy about the whole bidness. I've been able to do some pretty useful stuff.

Be glad to post code and answer any questions you may have. I'm using UniObjects for Windows on a generic WinXP box running Apache and PHP5. If you are on a LInux server you may have to use the UniObjects for java, which I'm not all that familiar with.

You can follow the links above to get the UniObjects installed on your WAMP server. I'd be glad to help with any setup issues. Once you get an environment running I've got some code I can share as well..

Also I'll be at the HighEdWeb2008 conference next fortnight if you'll be there.

[Brandon Tilley]

Well, this has certainly been interesting so far.

I installed UniDK, and double-checked in the registry that all the DLLs are registered. I went ahead and converted uvoaif.txt to PHP define()s, just in case. Then, I started with:

(editor doesn't like my code, see attached)

So far that script hasn't stopped executing (it's been a couple minutes now). Am I on the right track or waaay off in left field?

[Brandon Tilley]

Aha! I have life!

I added $uni->AccountPath = /*our account path*/; and I was able to get something out of it. Not much yet, but something. :-)

[Brandon Tilley]

With a few moments of playing around, I was able to grab data out of the PERSON file. It works like a charm! I (almost) can't wait for Monday so I can play with this project some more. It's all thanks to your help! Thanks a ton!!

[Rich Harrington]

Ola Brandon -

I guess the interface also rejected my code laden post yesterday. Congratulations on getting your first taste working!

I'd like to mention that in addition to the 'File' object which lets you read and write data, the Command object is also useful for doing things like creating data sets and writing queries. I've attached (I hope) a couple of chunks of code that runs a series of queries and loads up a MySql data store for reporting purposes. I've abstracted the UniObjects interface into a php class that makes it a little simpler to run a query. I'm using UniObjects to connect to Colleague and the ADODB library to connect to MySql.

Also one thing to note. Depending on your installation (ours is UniData over HP Unix), you may run into a known bug where only the first eight characters of the user's password are passed from the UniRPC listener to the operating system. The result is that persons with a password longer than 8 characters have their login fail. The workaround is to have anyone logging into a web application built over uniObjects set their password to something 8 characters long (or less). I'll post my simple login routine it that helps...

[Rich Harrington]

Sorry - this page does the Command object data set creation.

Also I moved all of the html generation out into a cheap library (clsPage...) so I'll attach that here too,

[Jeff Murphy]

We have sqlized some unidata queries. Pulling course schedules, course descriptions etc from Datatel. We've been looking into Drupal for a portal solution and so happy to find this group!