Lotus Domino NotesSQL ODBC & SQL 2008 query

Question

I'm trying to work at getting the same information from a couple different sources but have hit a wall in trying to use NotesSQL and SQL 2008. What I am trying to do is to retrieve info from a couple different views on Domino servers. One view is a default view, the other is a created one.

One method I have used is Powershell, where I get the database, then select the view, get the first document & then iterate through the rest of the view grabbing fields that I need. The view I have selected is the People view.

I was trying to replicate this same thing using SQL 2008, using the NotesSQL driver, setting up an ODBC connection, and then creating a linked server to that Notes database. I am using the following query to select from the People view:

select * from openquery(MyNotesServer,'Select * from People')

However, what is returned from this view isn't what I am able to see when I use Powershell & then iterate through the documents returned in that view. Powershell shows 100+ columns in it, while SQL only returns 5 columns. Additionally, they're named "_12", "17" etc. Some fields (which may be custom, I don't know) have a meaningful name. Of the fields shown, I can select them by name ("_12", etc) but cannot select anything else. The number of rows (SQL) is the same as the number of documents in the view (Powershell $view.Allentries.Count).

Querying the view that was created (3 fields):

select * from openquery(MyNotesServer,'Select * from MyCreatedView')

returns all the fields in that view, and they are named as they are in the view.

In T-SQL querying the People view, how do you get the names of the columns that I know are there as I discovered in my Powershell script? They don't appear to be named the same thing, so how do you retrieve more than the 5 returned when you select * from the view? I have read through the Notes documentation & examples, but haven't been able to figure out what is mapped to where.

The reasoning behind this is wanting to utilize SQL & a notes.id file instead of running a script. Also, I want to make use of an already existing global view instead of views that may be accessible only to their author.

Answer 1

You can use select * from Person. Person is a form name, not a view name. Notes and Domino are not relational. The NSF file is a document database. The views in it are pre-built indexes that already have an implicit select. I.e., the "People" view selects all documents created with the "Person" form.

The above query bypasses the use of a view and will give you all the fields for all documents created with the the Person form.

Actually, come to think of it, the better query would be select * from Person where type='Person'. That's because the People view in Domino uses type="Person" instead of form="Person" in its selection formula. It is theoretically possible to have a document created with the Person form but with the Type field set to a different value. This variation will insure that you always get the same list that you see in the Person view.

But: In either case, it will be inefficient. The NotesSQL driver will have to do a full database search instead of simply reading the index of an existing view. It's going to search using the Notes formula SELECT Form="Person" & Type="Person". I really cannot recommend this, unless you are querying against a small Domino Directory database.

The best practice is to create a view containing all the fields that you really need, and do your query against that view.