IBM DB2

• May 18, 2023
• 4 minutes to read

The Dashboard Designer allows you to connect to different types of SQL databases in the Data Source Wizard. You can also use data access API to connect to the database and select data in code.

This tutorial describes how to establish a connection to an IBM DB2 database and select data.

• Create a Data Source in the Data Source Wizard
• Create a Data Source in Code

Important

The appropriate data provider must be installed on the client machine. For information on data providers, refer to the Data Sources article.

Create a Data Source in the Data Source Wizard

To connect to an IBM DB2 database in the Dashboard Designer, follow the steps below:

1. Click the New Data Source button in the Data Source ribbon tab.

   

2. On the first page of the invoked Data Source Wizard dialog, select IBM DB2 and click Next.

   

3. On the next page, specify connection parameters.

   

   • Server name

     Specifies the name of the IBM DB2 server to which the connection should be established.

   • User name

     Specifies the user name used to authenticate to the IBM DB2 server.

   • Password

     Specifies the password used to authenticate to the IBM DB2 server.

   • Database

     Specifies the name of the database that contains data.

4. Click Next and specify how to select data from the database.

   

   You can choose from the following options:

   • Select the Query option and click Run Query Builder… to invoke the Query Builder. The Query Builder allows you to choose the tables/columns and passes the resulting SQL query to the SQL String editor. Subsequently, the text of the generated query returns to the Data Source wizard.

     

     Click Finish to create the data source.

     Note

     If you apply filtering or use query parameters, click Next to specify the parameter settings.

   • Select the Stored Procedure option to select one of the stored procedures from the database.

     

     Then click Next to specify the parameter settings.

5. On the last page, you can optionally add query parameters and preview data.

   

   Click Finish to create the data source.

Create a Data Source in Code

To create a data source that uses a connection to the IBM DB2 database, create an instance of the DashboardSqlDataSource class and follow the steps below:

1. Specify connection parameters for the IBM DB2 database. Create the DB2ConnectionParameters class object and specify the following properties:

   • The SqlServerConnectionParametersBase.ServerName property specifies the name of the server to which the connection should be established. The SqlServerConnectionParametersBase.DatabaseName property specifies the name of the database to which the connection should be established.
   • The SqlServerConnectionParametersBase.UserName and SqlServerConnectionParametersBase.Password properties specify user credentials.

   Assign the resulting DB2ConnectionParameters object to the SqlDataSource.ConnectionParameters property.

   Note

   As an alternative, you can add a connection string with required parameters to the application configuration file. Then, assign the connection string name to the SqlDataSource.ConnectionName property.

2. Create one of the following objects to specify the query:

   • Create a SelectQuery object to specify a set of tables/columns that form a SELECT statement when you execute a query.
   • Create a CustomSqlQuery object to specify an SQL query. Use the CustomSqlQuery.Sql property to specify a custom query string.
   • Create a StoredProcQuery object to execute a stored procedure call and supply the dashboard with data.

   Add the created query to the SqlDataSource.Queries collection exposed by the DashboardSqlDataSource object.

3. Add the created DashboardSqlDataSource object to the Dashboard.DataSources collection.

The following code snippet shows how to supply the dashboard with data from the IBM DB2 Northwind database:

C#

using DevExpress.DashboardCommon;
using DevExpress.DataAccess.ConnectionParameters;
using DevExpress.DataAccess.Sql;
// ...
            DB2ConnectionParameters db2Params = new DB2ConnectionParameters();
            db2Params.ServerName = "localhost";
            db2Params.DatabaseName = "Northwind";
            db2Params.UserName = "Admin";
            db2Params.Password = "password";            

            DashboardSqlDataSource sqlDataSource = new DashboardSqlDataSource("Data Source 1", db2Params);
            SelectQuery selectQuery = SelectQueryFluentBuilder
                .AddTable("SalesPerson")
                .SelectColumns("CategoryName", "Extended Price")
                .Build("Query 1");
            sqlDataSource.Queries.Add(selectQuery);
            sqlDataSource.Fill();
            dashboard.DataSources.Add(sqlDataSource);

VB.NET

Imports DevExpress.DashboardCommon
Imports DevExpress.DataAccess.ConnectionParameters
Imports DevExpress.DataAccess.Sql
' ...
            Dim db2Params As New DB2ConnectionParameters()
            db2Params.ServerName = "localhost"
            db2Params.DatabaseName = "Northwind"
            db2Params.UserName = "Admin"
            db2Params.Password = "password"

            Dim sqlDataSource As New DashboardSqlDataSource("Data Source 1", db2Params)
            Dim query As SelectQuery = SelectQueryFluentBuilder _ 
                .AddTable("SalesPerson") _ 
                .SelectColumns("CategoryName", "Extended Price") _
                .Build("Query 1")
            sqlDataSource.Queries.Add(selectQuery)
            sqlDataSource.Fill()
            dashboard.DataSources.Add(sqlDataSource)