Re: metabase support

""Manuel Lemos"" <mlemos@acm.org> wrote in message news:2305.491T218T7862835mlemos@acm.org... > >I just want to make sure that I'm understanding what metabase supports. > > >It does not support: > >- references > >- primary keys > > >Does anyone find that this prevents you from using metabase? Or do you find > >that you have to hack your way around these deficiencies? > > You can live perfectly well without both. > > In practice primary keys are not much more than declaring a unique index on > the key fields. > > References or foreign keys have a role of assuring database integrity. > This means that if you update your database tables and not assure that > specified references exist consistently, the DBMS will fail on those > updates. > > It's not like it will avoid your application bugs, but at least if your > application has a bug that would break the database integrity, well placed > references/foreign keys will prevent that to happen. Your application will > just stop working until you fix the bugs. > > >I use MySQL most of the time, so I've learned to design without explicit > >references, but I'd like to have the opportunity to at least specify > >references in the schema definition (which MySQL allows but doesn't do > >anything with). It seems that with a DBMS-independent abstraction layer like > >metabase something like this should be supported. > > Support for primary/foreign keys is in my to do list. It just did not > become a priority because there are other things more important to add like > BLOBs. > > Metabase is about to go Open Source. I am just waiting to finish a great > design tool before I announce when Metabase will be open for other > developers to contribute with work that I can't do right away. > > Anyway, that should not stop you from using Metabase as it is. Metabase is > the only PHP database abstraction package that does schema management. You > can live without schema management, but it provides great schema > maintenance aid. > > When support for primary/foreign keys is added explicitly you will be able > to upgrade your schemas without worry. So, you can use Metabase with > schema management as it is now. > > > Regards, > Manuel Lemos Thanks for your comments, Manuel. I will consider them. However, I was wondering if anyone else who is less biased :-) wanted to comment on my questions. Thanks. Dean Hall.