Re: Sybase and Sybase-CT and MSSQL, oh my?

Hi Frank, On Wed, 5 Sep 2001, Frank M. Kromann wrote: > > I can't help but notice that MSSQL, Sybase, and Sybase CT-Lib each have their > > own PHP extension. What I wonder if many people have /not/ noticed is that > > two of these extensions implement the same C API on different platforms (mssql > > targetted for Windows systems, sybase targetted for Unix systems), and all > > three implement the same database protocol on the wire. > This was true for MSSQL 4.x and 6.x but the databases and the protocol have > evolved different in the two products (MSSQL vs. Sybase) since. Microsoft > has not updated DBLibrary since version 6.x so there is a few features > available in 7.0 and 2000 there is unsupported in the PHP extension. If > Microsoft decides not to update DBLibrary I will start rewriting the > extension using a more up to date protocol in order to support all features. > I would furthermore prefer to develop the extension to work from both Win32 > and *nix clients. If you choose to rewrite an MS SQL extension using Microsoft's new client API, I hope that PHP will still retain *one* extension built on top of dblib. CT-Lib and Microsoft's new APIs are more feature-rich than dblib, but dblib is the most portable of the three, so it makes sense to keep an extension around that's built on dblib -- /if/ PHP makes use of its cross-platform capabilities, that is. :) Perhaps the best choice would be to merge ext/mssql and ext/sybase into a single module that's named for what it really is -- ext/dblib. This leaves the namespace clear for a future ext/mssql built on top of a different API. I'm not sure how you would write an extension on top of Microsoft's new API that works on Unix systems, however. Has Microsoft released client libraries for Unix? > > In light of this, would it not be to everyone's advantage to consolidate > > developer efforts and merge the ext/mssql and ext/sybase modules? (Providing > > appropriate PHP_FALIAS wrappers for backwards compat, of course.) I can't > > imagine that there is so much difference between these two codebases that we > > need one extension with a .dsp file and one extension with a config.m4 file. > The MSSQL extension (on Win32 only) do have a few functions more but these > could be ported into one of the Sybase extensions. Ok, but then you're talking about porting -- which means that every time a new feature is added to one extension, someone also has to port /that/ feature to the other extension, as well. What is the advantage here to keeping *two* dblib extensions around, instead of one that has all the features of both? It may be a little easier to be able to ignore compatibility with other platforms, but I'd certainly be happier to see one extension that gets twice as much use (and therefore testing). > I dont know muct about Subase and Sybase-ct but I agrre that these extension > should be combined into one, with aliases and functionality from the mssql > extension to allow access to MSSQL Server 4.x and 6.x from Win32 and *nix > clients. The differences between the Sybase and Sybase-CT extensions lie in the underlying C APIs that they invoke. Combining these is not feasible. Combining ext/mssql and ext/sybase is very feasible -- I've done much of the rewriting already, I just need to get my development box back on-line before I can share it. Steve Langasek postmodern programmer