Re: [Tcl-tdbc] [TCLCORE] CALL FOR DISCUSSION: TDBC introspection

[Arnulf W. <ar...@wi...>]

Am Dienstag 18 Mai 2010 05:34:42 schrieb Kevin Kenny:
> Larry McVoy wrote:
> > On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 11:09:50PM -0400, Kevin Kenny wrote:
> >> Larry McVoy wrote:
> >>> I am _so_ not an expert in all this stuff.
> >>>
> >>> The only question I have is has anyone looked at what perl/python/etc
> >>> do in this area?
> >>
> >> Yes.
> >
> > And?  What was learned?
> 
> ODBC implements this stuff with the SQLGetPrimaryKeys,
> SQLGetForeignKeys, and SQLGetStatistics calls.
> Perl's DBI essentially copies what ODBC does directly: it has
> 'primary_key_info', 'foreign_key_info' and the (misleadingly named)
> 'statistics_info' to query primary keys, foreign keys, and indices
> respectively.  JDBC also does the same thing -- in a typically
> Byzantine fashion. Its 'DatabaseMetaData' interface - which must
> be constructed/retrieved by a separate call upon the connection
> object - supports 'getPrimaryKeys', 'getImportedKeys',
> 'getExportedKeys', 'getCrossReference', and 'getIndexInfo'.
> 
> All three of these define a very similar API to what I propose, with
> perhaps slightly more awkward names of things.  Perl's documentation
> also warns that 'statistics_info' is 'experimental and subject to
> change.
> 
> Caveat - All three seem to use the ODBC names for things.
> I dislike them - all uppercase, and not always as mnemonic as
> they should be, and think them un-Tclish. I'm willing to be convinced
> that they are the True Names, if enough people feel strongly
> about it.
> 
> The JDBC, ODBC and Perl API's require negotiating a result set
> rather than returning lists-of-dicts directly. That interface
> seemed rather like overkill to me.
> 
> Python's DB-API has no support for schema introspection.  It
> appears to be under consideration for dbApi3.
> http://wiki.python.org/moin/DbApi3#SchemaInformation
> 
> PHP, predictably enough, is a hodgepodge. I'm not even going to
> discuss it.
> 
I vote for making them tcl'ish then and I was thinking about asking you to 
make the proposed interfaces, so you are talking exactly what I will need for 
my ATWF project
Arnulf (apw)