I see what you are getting at. Let me be a little more detailed with my
response. There are actually *two* APIs to interface with data stored in a
WinFS store.
a) ADO.NET vNext
b) Win32
I described to you why we are using ADO.NET vNext- we are taking advantage
of many of the features they are building around Entity Data Modeling.
These features include the ability to perform queries, joines and complex
"database-like" operations against data stored in the system (we call data
stored in WinFS, 'Items').
However, items can also be accessed through Win32. APIs like CreateFile,
FindFirst, FindNext all continue to work. For example, 'Items' that have a
File associated to them, calling CreateFile will return the file object
associated to the caller. However, the Win32 interfaces to items will not
provide the richer capabilities over the data that the ADO.NET interfaces
will allow.
So to answer your question- non-Microsoft clients can access the data stored
in a WinFS store in the following ways
a) Through SMB share but limited to the kinds of operations you can perform
with standard SMB and Win32 API
b) Create an ODBC / JDBC provider over SMB, though this would probably still
be limited to the same types of restrictions above (I bet that if you were
creative, you might still be able to do some interesting things to support
some of the additional capabilities over the data). Having said this.. this
probably would end up being tantamount to option 'c'....
c) implement a client-server like system where you place a server on the
Windows system that interfaces to WinFS data through ADO.NET interfaces and
essentially maps calls/responses from an ODBC / JDBC provider on the
non-windows client
Hope this answers your question!
--
Shan Sinha [MSFT]
shans@online.microsoft.com
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights
"rajesh" <rajesh@nospam.nospam> wrote in message
news:56DD3AAB-EF38-44D4-9D79-3E3DF953A919@microsoft.com...
> Shan,
>
> Thanks for the quick and useful response.
>
> So, if I understand you correctly the only way a
> non-Microsoft client can access winfx is via
> a SMB share.
>
> Is this correct or am I missing something?
>
> --
> Regards,
> Rajesh
>
>
> "Shan Sinha [MSFT]" wrote:
>
>> Hi Rajesh-
>>
>> That is a good question. We currently have no plans to offer ODBC / JDBC
>> interfaces to WinFS stores. To be more concrete, the WinFS API will be
>> ADO.NET for Beta 2. This API we are building for WinFS will be built
>> with
>> the *next* version of ADO.NET we are building. Specifically, we will be
>> heavily taking advantage of features being built into that version of
>> ADO.NET around Entity Data Modeling (mapping store-side schemas to
>> application layer objects).
>>
>> Hope that answers your question!
>>
>> --
>> Shan Sinha [MSFT]
>> shans@online.microsoft.com
>> This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
>> rights
>>
>> "Rajesh" <rchawla@nospam.nospam> wrote in message
>> news:A8EBAFEC-97D2-4786-9A71-3B5330655EE5@microsoft.com...
>> > There has been mention that an ADO.NET interface to WinFS
>> > could be in Beta 2.
>> >
>> > Is there any thought to creating an ODBC or JDBC interface as well ?
>> > --
>> > Regards,
>> > Rajesh
>> >
>>
>>
>>