jackcess/xdocs/faq.fml

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<faqs title="Frequently Asked Questions">

  <part id="general">
    <title>General</title>

    <faq id="linux">
      <question>Does this work on Linux/Unix?</question>
      <answer>
        <p>Yep, Jackcess is pure Java.  It will work on any
          Java Virtual Machine (1.4+).</p>
      </answer>
    </faq>

    <faq id="formats">
      <question>What Access formats does it support?</question>
      <answer>
        <p>Jackcess currently supports <i>only</i> Access 2000
          databases.  Access 2003 is not supported.</p>
      </answer>
    </faq>

    <faq id="mdbtools">
      <question>
        How is this different from
        <a href="http://mdbtools.sf.net">mdbtools</a>?
      </question>
      <answer>
        <p>
          We want to give a lot of credit to mdbtools.  They have
          been around much longer than Jackcess, and, along with
          <a href="http://jakarta.apache.org/poi">POI</a>,
          inspired us that a project like this could be done.
          mdbtools is written in C.  There is a Java port of it,
          but if you've ever read or used a Java port of a C
          library, you can appreciate the difference between such
          a library and one written from scratch in Java.
        </p>
        <p>
          At the time of this writing, mdbtools could only read
          Access databases.  Jackcess can also write to them.
          According to their web site, "Write support is currently being
          worked on and the first cut is expected to be included in the
          0.6 release."  This status hasn't changed since we first
          started work on Jackcess.
        </p>
        <p>
          mdbtools supports Access 97 databases, which Jackcess does not.
          The Java port of mdbtools also includes an implementation of
          a small subset of the JDBC APIs.  Jackcess does not currently,
          but a pure Java JDBC driver for Access could certainly be written
          on top of Jackcess.
        </p>
      </answer>
    </faq>

    <faq id="poi">
      <question>
        This looks like a logical addition to
        <a href="http://jakarta.apache.org/poi">POI</a>.  Why not integrate
        with that project?
      </question>
      <answer>
        <p>
          POI is released under
          <a href="http://www.apache.org/foundation/licence-FAQ.html">The Apache License</a>.
          Jackcess is released under
          <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html">The GNU Lesser General Public License</a>.
          The Apache license allows closed-source and/or commercial forks.
          The LGPL does not.  If you change or enhance Jackcess, you must contribute
          your changes back to the project.
        </p>
      </answer>
    </faq>

    <faq id="odbc">
      <question>
        I'm using the JDBC/ODBC bridge.  Why should I try Jackcess?
      </question>
      <answer>
        <p>
          <ul>
            <li>
              Portability - With Jackcess, your app has one less dependency on Windows.
            </li>
            <li>
              Speed - We had an app that used the ODBC bridge to write data to an
              Access database.  When we switched it over to use Jackcess, it was 5 times faster.
            </li>
            <li>
              Stability - With large amounts of data, we found the ODBC brige to be
              pretty unreliable.
            </li>
            <li>
              Simplicity - With Jackcess, there is no ODBC configuration to set up.
            </li>
          </ul>
        </p>
      </answer>
    </faq>

    <faq id="jdk">
      <question>What version of the JDK does this require?</question>
      <answer>
        <p>
          Version 1.0 requires JDK 1.4 or higher.  The version in CVS HEAD and future releases
          will require JDK 1.5 or higher.
        </p>
      </answer>
    </faq>

    <faq id="dependencies">
      <question>Why do I get a NoClassDefFoundError?</question>
      <answer>
        <p>
          Probably because you're missing a jar that Jackcess depends on from your
          classpath.  Take a loook at the <a href="http://jackcess.sourceforge.net/dependencies.html">dependencies list</a>.  The first 3 are required for both building and running
          and can be found either at the <a href="http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/">
          Jakarta Commons</a> or the <a href="http://www.ibiblio.org/maven">Ibiblio
          Maven Repository</a>.  The other 3 are only required for building, in which
          case, Maven will find them for you.
        </p>
      </answer>
    </faq>

    <faq id="hms">
      <question>Who is Health Market Science?</question>
      <answer>
        <p>
          HMS is a small company located in suburban Philadelphia.
          Using proprietary matching and consolidation software,
          HMS scientifically manufactures the most comprehensive
          and accurate healthcare data sets in the market today.
          <a href="http://www.healthmarketscience.com/company/careers.html">We're hiring!</a>
          HMS is always looking for talented individuals, especially
          <a href="http://www.healthmarketscience.com/company/jobs/developer.html">Java developers</a>.
        </p>
      </answer>
    </faq>

    <faq id="bugs">
      <question>It doesn't work!</question>
      <answer>
        <p>
          Ok, that wasn't a question, but we'll try to respond anyway. :)
          Jackcess is young, and not that robust yet.  As you might imagine,
          it's kind of hard to test, simply by its nature.  There are
          bugs that we are aware of, and certainly many more that we are not.
          If you find what looks like a bug, please
          <a href="http://sf.net/tracker/?group_id=134943&amp;atid=731445">report it.</a>
          Even better, fix it, and
          <a href="http://sf.net/tracker/?group_id=134943&amp;atid=731447">submit a patch.</a>
        </p>
      </answer>
    </faq>

  </part>

</faqs>