God, why do I do this?
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mike McGonagle mjmogo@gmail.com Date: Nov 12, 2007 1:35 PM Subject: Re: [PD-dev] Fwd: Fwd: Connecting up an SQL Database to PD To: Andy Farnell padawan12@obiwannabe.co.uk
On 11/13/07, Andy Farnell padawan12@obiwannabe.co.uk wrote:
On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 12:05:47 -0600 "Mike McGonagle" mjmogo@gmail.com wrote:
Apologies for the shallow input, just scanning and speaking my thoughts...
- I would strongly suggest not including the sqlite sources with the
sqlite4pd sources.
Yes, modularity, maintainability.
This really isn't a big issue. I will look at using a library for sqlite.
- I think having the SQL query provided as an object creation argument
is a really bad idea. Wouldn't it be better to just pass the query in as a list
It seems mean to leave all formatting to the user, but that's most flexible in practice.
At the same time, the process of building the message to create the SQL that then gets submitted could be cumbersome. If it is just a simple thing like loading up a textfile, and then forwarding this on that is one thing (assuming that each line in the textfile is a complete SQL statement), but to construct dynamic SQL on the fly, that is a whole different thing. And this doesn't even address the different types of SQL statements, each returning a different result set, or error code.
And then there is still the issue of having to parse through the result sets as they comeback...
list would basically be UNFORMATTED data, and it would require the PD code to interpret the result sets.
KISS. Object should know as little about databases as it can, it's all down to the object user and the service behind the object, object == gateway, nothing much more.
Ok, can anyone create a PD patch that might illustrate some of the ways you envision sending SQL to the database? Nothing "workable", just a prototype of what you see...
While I would tend to agree in keeping it simple. There are a couple of hurdles that must be crossed. On the one hand, I get the impression that some are thinking that it is as simple as saying "select * from my-table;" and then you are done, each SQL statement is potentially VASTLY different from the next, and to expect to create a single INSTANCE of a connection, and pipe all your requests through that one object, I think is a little naive. If you are familiar with other Database programming enviornments, they assume that you are working with a single SQL statement (or a simple variable statement) that serves a single purpose. They don't (AFAIK) try to pipe all their requests through the same object. Working with SQL not only requires knowing the programming, but also the format of the data expected in the database.
On the other hand, I would think that expecting a single object to handle this would result in a 'route'ing nightmare in the PD code in interpreting the result sets. While dealing with a single instance of an SQL statement that has known results, would be very manageable and not require a lot of routing.
Mike
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