NTiConnection class

Description

The NTiConnection class represents the connection to the IBM i and implements the DbConnection class from the ADO.NET model (System.Data.Common namespace).

General considerations

Connection Pool

NTi does not implement a connection pool. It is up to the user to implement it in .NET if necessary. In this way, the user has total control over the connections he opens and closes, without delegating this work to a randomly operating connection pool.

💡 It is relatively simple to implement a custom object pool in .NET. For example, use this mechanism using ConcurrentBag<T> to implement your own connection pool.

One instance = one TCP connection = one IBM i job

Each instance of NTiConnection carries one TCP socket instance to connect to the IBM i. Thus there is a strong link between the instance, the connection and the IBM i job.

When an instance of NTiConnection is explicitly destroyed via .NET's Garbage Collector, the underlying TCP connection is instantly closed and destroyed in turn, causing the IBM i job to stop. This mechanism guarantees total user control of connections.

Connection string

Like most database access providers, NTi uses a connection string to obtain IBM i connection information (user name, password, etc.). This connection string may contain sensitive information. There are a number of methods for securing the management of the connection string and configuration files.

Refer to the official .NET documentation and recommendations for their implementation.

ADO.NET implementation

This class implements the usual methods and properties of the ADO.NET model for carrying out database access operations, in particular

• Open()
• Close()
• CreateCommand()
• BeginTransaction()
• Commit()
• Rollback()

In this way, NTi integrates into any existing application developed with other vendors such as ODBC or OleDB drivers.

💡 Documentation for this default implementation can be found on any ADO.NET documentation, for example via the System.Data.Common namespace documentation.

Methods

In addition to the functionality of the ADO.NET model, the NTiConnection class implements methods specific to the use of the IBM i, in particular for executing CL commands and calling RPG, CL... programs.

These specific methods are:

Properties

The specific properties of the NTiConnection class allow you to define connection properties and access information about the state of the connection to the IBM i. To ensure compatibility with other providers' connection strings, some properties may correspond to several different keywords.