Re: [Pyobjc-dev] SQLite and PyObjC

[David B. <db3...@gm...>]

John Velman <ve...@co...> writes:

> 1.  Which is better to use for the sqlite interface, the Xcode interface to
> sqlite, or the Python interface?  If Xcode is better, how the heck can I
> find some documentation? Googling or searching in the developer
> documentation hasn't gotten me there yet.  Probably because I don't know
> the right search words. The amount of Apple documentation is enormous.

Personally I use SQLAlchemy with a sqlite back-end - e.g., stay
completely on the Python side of the equation for data management.
For my application I didn't need any of the ORM features, so I'm just
using the SQL generation layer of SQLAlchemy, but it's great for that.

> 2. For display of tabular query results, is NSTableView the "best" way to
> go?   I've had a quick scan of the "Understanding the NSTableView Class,
> and a look at one of the examples, and I'm overwhelmed.  I don't need to
> edit this in place.  One alternative would appear to be formatting into
> columns in Python, and use some form of NSBrowser or NSTextView.

NSTableView is definitely my workhorse for presenting tabular
information, even if only a single column.  You just get too much
behavior for free not to use it IMO.

In terms of controlling the data flow, I've actually used multiple
methods:

First, I started out enamoured with data bindings, and used them a
lot, even for an array source to a data controller driving an
NSTableView.

Re-assigning the entire array (to trigger the automatic PyObjC binding
update) was sometimes a pain, particularly when I had other state in
the array I wanted to keep, so in some cases I started controlling the
notification myself, permitting mutation in place of the data - e.g.,
I called willChangeValueForKey_, then modified, then called
didChangeValueForKey_).

But as I went on, I found that although there was slightly more setup,
creating an appropriate data source for the NSTableView was more
flexible, particularly as the data changed, or if it was being
retrieved incrementally, such as from the network or database.

I still have a mixture of approaches in the main application I used
this with, but if I were starting over, I'd probably use bindings for
simple text fields and status information, but stick with data sources
for the major table views.

-- David