Re: Database Preference? -- Manuel, Michael, Miles

James Potts wrote: > > Manuel, > > Thanx for the excellent overview of metabase. I will give it a test drive. > A couple further questions, if you have time: > > Do you execute meta commands like you do with the other db interface > functions, e.g., odbc_connect(), odbc_select(), etc., or are you able to > encapsulate SQL between tags, e.g. > > <tag> > SELECT bar FROM foo WHERE barname = "chocolate"; > </tag> > > Using a function set can be cumbersome, compared to embedded language > interfaces where you just put SQL between tags, just like PHP is handled > between the <? ?> tags. That is the subject of some other project that I have which is an actual meta-language defined in XML. You write what you want to do with XML tags, and there is a compiler that translates that in to code of a target language, like PHP. This is not yet a released project although I have given a talk on this in San Diego O'Reilly Open Source conference in July, and if all goes well I will give another talk in November in PHP conference in Frankfurt. More information on that is available here: http://www.meta-language.net/ > Also, can you PREPARE, DECLARE, and OPEN cursors like, say, in Informix, so > you can use variable SELECT parameters? For example, using Informix ESQL/C > you can PREPARE a statement, use it to DECLARE a CURSOR, and the OPEN the > CURSOR USING multiple values, as in: > > sprintf( query, "%s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s %s", > "begin work;", > "update account set balance = balance + ?," > "where acct_number = ?;", > "update teller set balance = balance + ?", > "where teller_number = ?;", > "update brance set balance = balance + ?", > "where branch_number = ?;" > "insert into history values (?, ?);", > "commit work;" ); > $prepare qid from $query; > $execute qid using $delta, $acct_number, $delta, $teller_number, > $delta, $branch_number, $timestamp, $values; Metabase supports prepared queries which you can execute as many times as you want with different values, if it is that what you are asking. > I should be able to check metabase out later this evening. If it can handle > the above native database language, I think it will be an asset, especially > for some of our older applications. I am not sure if it is exactly what you are asking. In any case there is an extensive manual and a tutorial that details all it can do. Regards, Manuel Lemos