How to Specify TempFeatures on the AIS Connect String

[DrorHarari]

AIS supports a special configuration option that allows for setting rarely used features of the product which are not present in the product configuration schema.

This configuration option is called "Temp Feature". A temp feature is typically set as part of the product binding environment definition like the following example:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='windows-1252'?>
<navobj version='5.3.2.0'>
    <environment name='NAV'>
        <misc exposeXmlField='true' language='eng'/>
        ...
        <tempFeatures>
            <tempFeature id='usingAccess2000' value='true'/>
            <tempFeature id='somethingElse' value='789'/>
        </tempFeatures>
    </environment>
</navobj>

In some cases, one may want to define temp features dynamically without using an environment definition. One such example may be the case of the Attunity thin ODBC client which does not use any local environment definition.

For such cases, the ODBC (and OLEDB) connection string may contain the temp feature definition in the form:

/tempFeatures/tempFeature=name/val;/tempFeatures/tempFeature1=name/value;... 

The XML example above can be written in the connection string with:

/misc/exposeXmlField=true;/misc/language=eng;
tempFeatures/tempFeature=usingAccess2000/true;
tempFeatures/tempFeature1=somethingElse/789 

Note that the tempFeature items are numbered so that there would not be multiple connection string items with the same name.

One important thing to remember when using the tempFeatures mechanism is that the feature names are entirely dynamic so if you specify a temp feature and misspell the name, no error will be given to tell you about this error. In order to tell whether a temp feature got used, one must check the server log file and look for a line of the following form:

Info: Temporary feature 'zeroBasedDateAsEmptyString' is enabled with a value of 'false'

If there is no such line with the temporary feature defined then that temp feature either was not use (the line appears on first actual use), its name did not match or the temp feature is not available in the specific version of AIS currently running.