Our biggest customer uses an AS400 as their database. The very limited programming I have done for them was years ago using Perl and ODBC. Most of the work we do for them currenty is done in RPG but they are now asking for stuff that is better suited to .NET, specifically ASP.NET, for their customers to view inventory on the web.



I have been looking and have some leads but if someone here has some practical expreience with something that works ( a data provider), I would sure appreciate it.

Keith Chisarik

You are correct.  You will need to use the OLE DB provider for the BO Mapper portion.  You can use their ADO.NET provider for run-time purposes.  That is why you need to learn the OLE DB provider type.  The nice thing here is that you will not need to distribute the OLE DB provider in this case, just get it working on your development machine. 

In either case, just create a simple text program that creates an OleDbConnection and then call the Open...just keep changing out the provider until it works.  This is easier than going in and out of the BO Mapper.  I cannot give you the information for the provider since I am not familiar with this data provider, but I do know that the provider is where your problem is.

I think that the IBMDA400 is correct for the OLE DB provider, however, I think that the GetSchema() method of the OleDbConnection object requires different parameters than other OLE DB providers.  Where with FoxPro, we use GetSchema("TABLES"), I don't think we can use "TABLES" as a parameter, because the database does not have "TABLES" but files. So, I think you're right on with your use of the DataDirect provider for creating your As400DbDataSourceItem class, but with the BOMapper, I think we're going to have to figure out what constraints we can use with the GetSchema() method to enumerate the database objects.