LOTUS CONNECTORS

Order Metaconnector
Use an Order Metaconnection to obtain consistent ordering of result sets from other Connections. The Order Metaconnector wraps another Connector and orders the result set based on user-defined criteria. Order options are available. The Order Metaconnector has no effect on data operations, other than producing a result set or fetching - it simply passes through Insert, Update, Remove, Create, Drop, and Action statements.

The Order Metaconnector loads and sorts the entire result set produced by its subconnector (through an Execute, Select, or Catalog operation) and then returns records in order for Fetch operations. Since the entire result set is loaded into memory, writeback operations are not available. Writeback operations are simulated with keyed operations. When performing a writeback operation through an Order Metaconnection, make sure to provide the relevant key values.

One of the primary problems solved by the Order Metaconnector is that of different sort orders during replication. For example, when replicating between Oracle and Notes, there are two potential sort order problems. First, the two databases handle case sensitivity differently. Second, certain punctuation characters are sorted differently. These differences may appear between any disparate databases, depending on the options selected for that database and the data set being replicated. For more information on database sort orders, contact your database system administrator.

Sort order differences may result in data that is out of sync. This results in numerous unnecessary insertions and deletions. While the end result is correct, the additional change operations can seriously degrade performance or cause problems with triggers and other events. To correct this problem, use an Order Metaconnection on both sides of the replication. Choose the same Order Metaconnection sorting options for each connection. This will replace the external databases sorting with its own consistent sorting. In addition, using the same character set for both sides of the replication may increase efficiency.

Connectivity to an Order Metaconnection

There are no additional requirements for connectivity beyond those of the underlying connection to which the Order Metaconnection is connecting. Also, since there is no external database for the Order Metaconnection itself, there is no connectivity test.