Re: [gnome-db] provider independent programming.

[Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo gnome-db org>]

On Fri, 2003-09-12 at 10:23 +1000, Bas Driessen wrote:
> Hello,
>  
> I recently start to work with libgda and have some questions. Is there
> anyway to program provider independent already using libgda 0.99.0?
> When using SQL with different databases, there are always small
> differences. My understanding is that to overcome that, XML Queries
> are (or will be ??) introduced. I get the impression that XML Queries
> are not finished yet. Is that correct? Does anyone know the status of
> that project? 
>  
they are finished, but they are not supported by providers. That is, you
can build XML queries on the fly, from code, but if you send that
command to the providers, none of them will understand the command :-(

We should make this one of the priorities for post-1.0.

> So what is the best way to overcome differences now?  Just a simple
> create table statement for instance:
>  
> CREATE TABLE test1 (name VARCHAR(10));
>  
> MySQL for instance uses VARCHAR, so that's fine. In Oracle they call
> it VARCHAR2 . What is called SERIAL in one database may be called
> NUMBER or INTEGER in another.  Will XML Queries solve these types of
> problems for me? What is the best way to deal with this at this stage?
>  
yes, they should solve these problems. Also, we want to provide
functions to create database objects programatically. Similar to the
get_schema function we've got right now, we want to have stuff like
create_schema, modify_schema, etc

> Regarding GDA Report Engine. Unfortunatly, I did not get any response
> regarding my previous questions about the status of this? I realize
> you all are very busy to get libgda 1 out of the door, but would
> appreciate a response. Is the report engine at a stage that I can
> start using it? Is/will there be some sort of report painter?  Any
> info will appreciated.
>  
the basic report file management functions should work. But there is no
UI yet, nor any test program to test them. IF you are brave enough, you
can start poking at the code, making a test program, and maybe you can
easily get it to work.

cheers