On Wed, 30 Nov 2011 12:16:22 +0200, mariuz <mariuz@...-dev.ro>
wrote:

>> Looking at
>> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1728476/does-android-support-jdbc

and

>> remembering the error you received, I suspect getting Jaybird to work

on

>> Android would require quite some work rewriting the driver to work. I
>> think
>> you will probably be better off (and more scalable) to create a
>> webservice
>> near the database and having the android application access that
>> webservice
>> instead of accessing the database directly.
>>
>> It will probably also be more performant and more secure (the

'insecure'

>> mobile phone can only perform those actions that the webservice

exposes),

>> and will probably improve the technical design of the application.
>
> I have seen that some apps sqlite put their own jdbc classes and the
> driver inside
> (I saw some in the android git sources and i will dig deeper)
> 1. put all jdbc related classes even the ones google will not support in
> the future (just to be safe)
> 2. add the jdbc firebird pure driver
> 3. also put what firebird driver related classes that are not yet

included

> in android sdk
>
>
> I have seen this app pgtop
>

http://www.slideshare.net/markwkm/pgtop-for-android-things-i-learned-making-this-app

> https://github.com/markwkm/PGTop
>
> so it seems that is loading the pg jdbc jar
> so it is possible to do the same with firebird jdbc one
>
> All we need a android friendly build of jaybird (no native for the

moment)

It is more complex than that: Firebird internally uses an implementation
of the JCA ManagedConnectionFactory which is defined in the JEE JCA
specification (one of the reasons Jaybird requires that
mini-j2ee.jar/jaybird-full.jar). These classes are definitely not part of
Android and would therefor require a significant rewrite(*), and also I am
not sure if the JSE and/or JEE licensing would allow recompiling the
required JCA, JTA and/or JDBC interfaces to Dalvik. That other drivers do
this is - I think - not sufficient reason for us to do this (especially
considering the other work that needs to be done on Jaybird).

But even more than that: in my opinion you really should not use JDBC on a
mobile phone to connect to a database (except for a *mobile-local* db like
SQLLite). Database connection protocols, especially those of Firebird, are
not really suitable for use over the relatively high-latency mobile phone
connections. Secondly the chattiness of the protocol and processing
required might not be entirely battery friendly. As I said before, I think
you are seriously better off (in terms of performance, security,
flexibility and scalability) to build a webservice that is accessed by the
phone app. The added benefit is a simpler, leaner phone app, a clear
separation of concerns and a much simpler way to port the app to multiple
phone platforms (you don't need to replicate the entire database connection
part, just the UI, interfacing with the webservice and maybe some
additional local logic).

*) A rewrite I am thinking of doing some time in the future, because I
don't actually like the fact that JSE users need to include JEE interfaces
(or use the jaybird-full.jar) for Jaybird to work, and it could (in theory)
cause classloading conflicts for JEE users that use the jaybird-full.jar.

That said, if someone wants to do the work: you are more than welcome to
help out :)

Mark