refreshing sreens with data changes

[S Chander]

Hi,
If this has already been discussed in the forum please redirect to the appropriate thread.
I have a J2EE application in which there are certain screens which display read only data. This data can be modified in the database by some other application. In such cases what are the normal procedures to refresh the client screens with the most recent data.
In the current implementation the client keeps querying the database periodically but I think this is not a very elegant solution. I would like to know if this can be accomplished by using MDBs or some other mechanism.
Thanks in advance.
cheers
Chander

[Karl Laird]

Unfortunatly if it is another application performing the updates then you are fairly constrained about what you can do.
Message Driven Beans need an event to respond to, a change in the db is not going to raise an event to help here. You could possibly set a trigger on the tables that executed a batch file with java code raising the event via a socket - but that wouldnt be highly elegant either!
It also really depends on the reasons for the application and what the user requirements are. Is there a need for real time data, or is it mainly for periodic reporting anyway?