8 Native Application Development

This document discusses Mobile application development for native platforms. The discussion covers the following topics:

• Section 8.1, "Supported Platforms for Native Applications"

• Section 8.2, "Supported APIs for Oracle Database Lite"

• Section 8.3, "Data Source Name"

8.1 Supported Platforms for Native Applications

For developing native applications on the Oracle Database Lite platform, the following operating system platforms are supported:

• Microsoft Windows NT/2000/XP

• Windows CE

  The following Windows CE chipsets are supported:

  • .NET 4.2 (ARMv4, Emulator)

  • Pocket PC 2003 (ARM, xScale, Emulator)

  • Pocket PC (ARM, Emulator)

• Palm OS

• Linux Redhat 3.0

8.2 Supported APIs for Oracle Database Lite

The following lists the supported APIs for Oracle Database Lite:

Table 8-1 Supported Native APIs

Native API	Description
COM Interface	Can use ODBC to access database. Use Oracle-specific APIs for programmatic synchronization. See Section 4.1, "Synchronization API For the COM Interface" for more information.
C, C++, C#	Can use ODBC to access database. Use Oracle-specific APIs for programmatic synchronization. See Section 4.2, "Synchronization APIs For C or C++ Applications" for more information.

In addition, you can use the following APIs for accessing database.

Table 8-2 Supported APIs

Native API	Description
JDBC	Use JDBC to access the database. See Oracle Database JDBC manuals and Chapter 10, "JDBC Programming" for instructions on how to use this API.
ODBC	Use ODBC to access the database. See Microsoft ODBC manuals for instructions on how to use this API.
.NET environment	Use the ADO.NET API. You can use Oracle-specific APIs for connecting to the database, programmatic synchronization, and other functions. See Section 14.1, "Discussion of the Classes That Support the ADO.NET Provider" for more information.
SODA	See Chapter 12, "Using Simple Object Data Access (SODA) for PalmOS and PocketPC Platforms" for more information.
Visual Basic	Use ODBC to access database.
.NET environment	Use the ADO.NET API. You can use Oracle-specific APIs for connecting to the database, programmatic synchronization, and other functions. See Section 14.1, "Discussion of the Classes That Support the ADO.NET Provider" for more information.
Java	There are several specifications for Java applications. See Chapter 9, "Java Application Development" for the Java application support.

8.3 Data Source Name

When you create a data source name using the ODBC Manager, you should use the following conventions:

• In Windows 32, the data source name is automatically created as <username_dbname> after the first synchronization, where both the username and database name are taken from within the publication.

• In Windows CE and Palm, the data source name is simply the database name; that is, <dbname>.

It is helpful to create a data source name to contain all of the properties of your connection to the database.