Chapter 1 Introducing Jaguar CTS

Shared data interfaces

Jaguar provides shared data interfaces in each component model. These interfaces allow components to store references to shared data and lock or unlock a specific piece of data. For example, if all instances of a component write to the same file, you can store the file handle as a shared object, then lock the file before writing to it and unlock it when done.

The shared data interface has the following restrictions:

Data storage is not persistent. Any data stored as a Jaguar shared object is lost when the server is restarted.
C and ActiveX components can only share data with other C and ActiveX components, respectively.
Java components can only share data among instances of the same component.

To overcome these limitations, Sybase recommends implementing a shared component that is called by other components that need to share data. Such a component can be implemented to store shared data in instance variables or in a remote database. To ensure that only a single instance of the component is created, set the Sharing option on the Instances tab of the component properties window (see "Instances tab component properties" for more information).

For information on using shared objects, see the sections referenced below:

"Share data between instances" describes the shared objects interface for Java components.
"Sharing data between components" describes the shared objects interface for ActiveX components.
"Share data between C or C++ components" describes the shared objects interface for C or C++ components.