Re: DB stuff

Hello Voitenko, On 07-Nov-00 12:23:42, you wrote: >I am wondering why wouldn't PHP support database connectivity like most >application servers do, e.g. something like a data source in JRun or >WebLogic where database connectivity is made DB server independent and all >the DB connectivity is configured in the guts of PHP? There are several database abstraction packages for PHP, but the only that really try to provide database independence in such way that you don't need change anything in your application: Metabase http://phpclasses.UpperDesign.com/browse.html/package/20 ADODB http://php.weblogs.com/ADODB You will also hear about other database abstraction packages that do not real offer complete database independence because you still have to handle in your application the representation differences of formats of non-CHAR/INTEGER data types, as they only attempt to be clones of Perl DBI which is just as limited: PHPlib, PHPdb, Pear-DB, ODBC, etc... From the above, I can speak more about Metabase because I have been developing it for almost 2 years. What you will like to know is that it is able not only to make database access DBMS independent, but also you can make database creation (tables, fields, indexes, sequences) also DBMS independent. All you need to do is to specify the schema of your database in simple XML format and it will install the database for you, eventually adapting to anything that may work differently between DBMS. Metabase is also able to do smart database schema upgrading. You only need to change your database schema description and it will apply the differences to the previously installed version of the schema, thus without affecting data already inserted after the database was installed for the first time or upgraded for the last time. Other than that there will be made available progressively more and more ready to use components that do things like synchronizing database table listing output, data between Web forms and database tables, database field data form validation, etc... If you would like to have early access to newer versions of Metabase core and components just subscribe to the development mailing list sending a blank message to metabase-dev-subscribe@egroups.com . Regards, Manuel Lemos Web Programming Components using PHP Classes. Look at: http://phpclasses.UpperDesign.com/?user=mlemos@acm.org -- E-mail: mlemos@acm.org URL: http://www.mlemos.e-na.net/ PGP key: http://www.mlemos.e-na.net/ManuelLemos.pgp --