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

Manuel, Thanx again for your help. I will check it out this evening. Sounds like you're a busy man. ;-) Keep up the good work. James Potts "Manuel Lemos" <mlemos@acm.org> wrote in message news:3B8EBD8F.D4383352@acm.org... > 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