Re: RFC - Using Gnumeric as a Database source

[Jody Goldberg <jody gnome org>]

On Sun, Dec 21, 2003 at 05:44:46PM +0200, Uri David Akavia wrote:
> Hello all.
> 
> I'm sending the mailing list a feature I would like to see implemented
> in the 1.3 development cycle - Using Gnumeric as a databse source.
> 
> I'll explain: I've used Excel as a small database (we're talking several
> hundred lines, where each collumn is a distinct value). This is simpler
> than using Acess (Blah) and it is generally simple enough so people can
> maintain it, even after I'm gone.
> This is for tissue harvested during research. The general idea is that
> each line has Collecter, Tissue type, Date, Amount and such like.
> I use SUMIF and COUNTIF to measure the amount of Muscle (for example)
> that I collected. However, both SUMIF and COUNTIF let you only specifiy
> one criteria, so to do something like this I have to use sorting and
> other yucks.
> I would like expanded SUMIF and COUNTIF - for example
> SUMIF(A15:F63, (B="Uri David" AND C="Muscle), G15:G63).
> 
> However, it got me thinking. Writing something like this in SQL would be
> incredibly easy, but it means that I have to set up Gnumeric as its own
> Database source. I think that such enhancment would allow me to set up
> much more complex questions, and change them on the fly.
> How difficult would it be?
> 
> I'm open to comments, and I hope that it isn't too difficult to
> implement.

It should be quite doable.  The best way to handle it is likely to
wait for gnumeric to split out libgnumeric and then do a thin
wrapper for that in gnome-db