Windows port installer

Hi,

I'm currently working on the installer for the binary distribution of
the Win32 port of PostgreSQL. We are already including psqlODBC and
Npgsql, and would like to include the JDBC driver as well. Knowing
nothing about JDBC I'm at a bit of a loss however and would appreciate
some guidance on what files to install, and where, as well as any
changes to the environment or registry etc. that may be required.

TIA,

Regards, Dave

[Oh, and please CC me as I'm not on the JDBC list].

Dave Page wrote:
> I'm currently working on the installer for the binary distribution of
> the Win32 port of PostgreSQL. We are already including psqlODBC and
> Npgsql, and would like to include the JDBC driver as well. Knowing
> nothing about JDBC I'm at a bit of a loss however and would appreciate
> some guidance on what files to install, and where, as well as any
> changes to the environment or registry etc. that may be required.

Here's an opinion from someone who's not really a JDBC driver developer at
all.

There's not really a location to install JDBC drivers onto an operating
system. They are not native libraries, and are typically packaged with
applications. The closest thing you could do to an installation would be to
locate JVM install directories via "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/JavaSoft/Java
Runtime Environment/*/JavaHome", and drop the JAR file into lib/ext relative
to that directory; but frankly I'd probably resent your doing so and certainly
wouldn't find it very useful.

If you need to give lip service to including JDBC drivers for political
reasons, then the best approach is probably to just leave the JDBC driver JAR
file somewhere, and provide documentation on how to find it.

--
www.designacourse.com
The Easiest Way to Train Anyone... Anywhere.

Chris Smith - Lead Software Developer/Technical Trainer
MindIQ Corporation

On 13/07/2004 15:37 Chris Smith wrote:
> [snip]
> There's not really a location to install JDBC drivers onto an operating
> system. They are not native libraries, and are typically packaged with
> applications. The closest thing you could do to an installation would be
> to
> locate JVM install directories via
> "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/JavaSoft/Java
> Runtime Environment/*/JavaHome", and drop the JAR file into lib/ext
> relative
> to that directory;

Which should totally screw up anyone using Tomcat (and probably a lot of
other apps that use custom class loaders).

--
Paul Thomas
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