TDI assembly lines often have several connectors accessing the same database: these might be SQL, LDAP, or something else.
If you configure each one independently then they will each open a separate connection to the database (even if they inherit from a library connector). This is obviously inefficient.
The solution to this problem is to just configure the connection parameters in one connector and to have all the others inherit the
connection.
To do this, look in the configuration->connection tab of the connector. Click on the
Inherit From button and look for the name of your master connector with an '@' sign on the front. Selecting this will change the configuration panel to show the message
Reusing Connector From .... and both connectors will then share a connection to the database.
Note that this inheritance only works within one assembly line: you cannot share connections between assembly lines.
Note also that sometimes you don't want to reuse connections,
for example when one of the Connectors is in Iterator mode.
Reusing the Iterator's connection could affect the cursor used
by the Iterator to read through its result set.
Thanks to Christian Chateauvieux for pointing this out in a
newsgroup discussion on JDBC performance. and to
EddieHartman for pointing out that re-using connections is not always a good idea.
--
AndrewFindlay - 09 Dec 2005
