pl. recommend (r)dbms / file manager for dolphin 4

Hi,

I am new to Dolphin, all our work is business data(base) oriented

I want to know what products typically are used with
Dolphin 4.0 to store data as Files or as an RDB(MS) and
which has a small footprint for deployment on the web

If an (R)DBMS / File Manager product typically gives .lib or .dll
to be interfaced with MSVC or WC++ or CPP then can it be
interfaced to Dolphin in the same way

Thanks

Sanjay Minni
[hidden email]
www.minisoftindia.com

Sanjay,

> I want to know what products typically are used with
> Dolphin 4.0 to store data as Files or as an RDB(MS) and
> which has a small footprint for deployment on the web
>
> If an (R)DBMS / File Manager product typically gives .lib or .dll
> to be interfaced with MSVC or WC++ or CPP then can it be
> interfaced to Dolphin in the same way

When interfacing with an RDB you typically have several choices.

1. The first is to use the Database Connection package that is available in
Dolphin Standard Edition. This allows you to connect to any database that
supports an ODBC driver (most do). The old disadvantage of this is that ODBC
intefaces *tend* to be somewhat slower than native direct access. A great
advantage, of course, is that you can defer (or change) your choice of
database and your code will continue to be compatible.

2. The second is again to use Microsoft's Active Data Objects (ADO)
technology. This is a framework which can access any ODBC data source (same
limitations as above) and also any OLE DB data source. Some DB providers
supply an OLE DB interface to theire products and this is typically faster
than the equivalent ODBC driver. Dolphin does not come with an ADO framework
built-in, however, it is trivial to auto-generate all of the ADO interfaces
classes using the ActiveX Component Wizard. You may then need to spend some
time adding some "sugar" methods to make these generated interfaces more
Smalltalk friendly. This is not essential, however, and the classes could be
used directly.

3. The third alternative is to link straight to an RDB's native access DLLs.
We don't support access to LIB files but basically you can fairly easily
access any external DLL. Details are at:

http://www.object-arts.com/EducationCentre/Overviews/ExternalInterfacing.htm

The results will typically be fast but not portable to other databases
should you wish to change in future. Personally, I would go for either 1) or
2).

I hope this helps.

Best regards,

Andy Bower
Dolphin Support
http://www.object-arts.com

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Andy,       [ I had started this subject before, so some matl. may be
rhetoric.]

Speed no issue so ODBC is ok but ODBC is a concern for admn.
i.e. clean install and uninstall and re-install and addl deployment files

At present we use  Sybase Adaptive Server Anywhere 6.0(ASA 6)
ASA has an "embedded SQL interface" which consists of .h header files
and import libraries .lib for Watcom C/C++, MSVC++, Borland C/C++
...and here is some addl info from the manual.
Q.Primafacie can it be used with Dolphin to deploy apps
         (I know little about lib/dll etc so far mostly working with a RAD
on Win and 3GLs in DOS)

info from manual...>>>
...Alternative to using import library...loading ASA interface lib
dynamically w/o
linking against import library...
use esqldll.c
1. your program must call db_init_dll lo load DLL ...and db_fini_dll to
unload
2. #include esqldll.h
3. compile esqldll.c ...(I have all the reqd c/c++ compilers)
4. link your object module to esqldll.obj
>>>... end info from manual

If I can get some indication that this can be used with Dolphin then I will
try to
go farther into it.

The current release ASA 7 has OLE DB / ADO, but that would mean Larger
deployment size and is the other alternative

Regards
Sanjay Minni


"Andy Bower" <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:8vlqgn$53159$[hidden email]... in
> Dolphin Standard Edition. This allows you to connect to any database that
> supports an ODBC driver (most do). The old disadvantage of this is that
ODBC
> intefaces *tend* to be somewhat slower than native direct access. A great
> advantage, of course, is that you can defer (or change) your choice of
> database and your code will continue to be compatible.
>
> 2. The second is again to use Microsoft's Active Data Objects (ADO)
> technology. This is a framework which can access any ODBC data source
(same
> limitations as above) and also any OLE DB data source. Some DB providers
> supply an OLE DB interface to theire products and this is typically faster
> than the equivalent ODBC driver. Dolphin does not come with an ADO
framework
> built-in, however, it is trivial to auto-generate all of the ADO
interfaces
> classes using the ActiveX Component Wizard. You may then need to spend
some
> time adding some "sugar" methods to make these generated interfaces more
> Smalltalk friendly. This is not essential, however, and the classes could
be
> used directly.
>
> 3. The third alternative is to link straight to an RDB's native access
DLLs.
> We don't support access to LIB files but basically you can fairly easily
> access any external DLL. Details are at:
>
>
http://www.object-arts.com/EducationCentre/Overviews/ExternalInterfacing.htm
>
> The results will typically be fast but not portable to other databases
> should you wish to change in future. Personally, I would go for either 1)
or

Sanjay,

Another alternative would be to use OmniBase which requires absolutely no
installation and is as lightweight as you can get. It requires no SQL
knowledge to use it and can handle multiple users at the same time.

You can read more about it at:

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Software/8887/

There is also a trivial business application example included in the
distribution.

Best regards,

David


Sanjay Minni <[hidden email]> wrote in message
news:8vnpqt$502rv$[hidden email]... will
> try to
> go farther into it.
>
> The current release ASA 7 has OLE DB / ADO, but that would mean Larger
> deployment size and is the other alternative
>
> Regards
> Sanjay Minni
>

Sanjay

You wrote in message news:8vnpqt$502rv$[hidden email]...
It is very likely that you will be able to call the native libraries.
Dolphin can call most DLLs with very few exceptions. The ODBC interface is
called via the ODBC DLL directly from the image, for example.>

Yes, you should be able to use esqldll.c. Incidentally with Dolphin 4.0, if
you have the .h file and know how construct type library IDL, the quickest
way to generate the Dolphin wrapper classes is to build a type library from
the header file, and then use the Active-X component wizard to generate the
module and structure definitions. This also avoids any errors in manual
transcription.

> If I can get some indication that this can be used with Dolphin then I
will
> try to
> go farther into it.

Using the native interface would seem the best way to go if you want minimal
deployment size and complexity and aren't concerned about supporting other
databases.

Actually I seem to recall that the somebody may already have built a native
interface to Sybase, but I can't remember who at present.

Regards

Blair