Posted by
Andy Bower on
Nov 24, 2000; 1:23pm
URL: https://forum.world.st/pl-recommend-r-dbms-file-manager-for-dolphin-4-tp3358276p3358285.html
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.htmThe 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
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