Date sent: Sun, 07 May 2000 18:49:08 -0400 From: Chris McDonough <chrism@digicool.com> Organization: Digital Creations To: bobc@p-wave.com Copies to: isparks@wmute.u-net.com, zope@zope.org Subject: Re: [Zope] Somewhat OT: Interbase DB Hi Chris, There's a post at http://weblogs.userland.com/qube/discuss/msgReader$497 from Markus Kemper of Interbase.com which indicates that they would like to work with the Zope community and are also looking for Python/Zope programmers. Perhaps they could spearhead the effort to get the Python libraries up to date for Interbase 6.0. I saw another post which said they got no reply from the author of Kinterbasdb, so perhaps he is no longer active. If I was a little farther along on Python programming myself, I'd give it a try. Come to think of it, it might be good training. Bob Corriher P-Wave.com
After a few hours of futzing around and trying to get Kinterbasdb (the python DB-API2 module for Interbase) working against Interbase 4.0 for linux, I have the following report:
- Kinterbasdb will not compile against the libraries distributed with the beta of IB6 'SuperServer'.
- Kinterbasdb compiles wonderfully against the libraries included with Interbase 4. However, because I'm running Red Hat with glibc 2.1.2, and the interbase libraries are statically linked against an older libc, upon attempting to use the Kinterbasdb module, I get:
ImportError: ./_kinterbasdb.so: undefined symbol: _xstat
I suppose some waving of dead chickens over the Makefile could solve this. After careful consideration, I don't care.
- Evidently Kinterbasdb compiles against Interbase 5.X (which I would presume is linked against a later glibc), but Interbase 5.X is not available for download (it's still a commercial product).
I'm not real keen on futzing more with this. I hope Alexander K. (the author of Kinterbasdb) revs the code soon to compile against Interbase 6. Until then, I give up.
bobc@p-wave.com wrote:
Interbase 6.0 will be open source for all platforms according to the open source Q&A at interbase.com : http://www.interbase.com/open/community/opensource_qa.html. The current version (5.6) is still commercial however. The 6.0 version comes with a user defined function library which includes date functions (I had the same problem when I started to use Interbase - found a UDF library, from Canada I think - NT only however) It also now has an Extract operator to work with the datetime datatype. I've been using Interbase since version 4.0 (about four years). I have it in use with up to 35 users simultaneously. I don't know how well it would scale to very large systems. I also would like to see an Interbase DA for Zope. I'm not enough of a Python programmer yet to do it myself, but I might have to bite the bullet and try.
Bob Corriher
Original Message
Message: 55 Reply-To: "Ian Sparks" <isparks@wmute.u-net.com> From: "Ian Sparks" <isparks@wmute.u-net.com> To: <bkc@murkworks.com>, <zope@zope.org> Subject: Re: [Zope] Interbase DB Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 18:42:54 +0100 charset="iso-8859-1"
This may not help at all but I know there is a Perl interface to Interbase - saw it at www.interbase.com a while back.
Can I ask why the interest in Interbase over, say, PostgreSQL
I've been using Interbase on NT for a few years now. It's stable, zero maintenance, hard-to-kill and has decent features like triggers, stored procedures etc. The one thing that lets it down is the built-in functions - you really need to get a User Defined Functions (UDF) library from day 0 and install it to do any sort of date manipulation for instance. My problem with this is that it makes your DB code hard to port between platforms - that UDF lib you use on NT won't work on Linux - esp. since UDF libs are often written in Delphi and thus tied to Win32 (at least until Kylix is released).
I also notice that Interbase don't seem to offer a free version to NT users - that's because they have so many NT customers who already bought licences who will want refunds!
One final notice is that Interbase only became Open Source after its key members of its development team walked out in protest over the way that the parent company was pushing (or not) the product. How can Interbase.com turn this crisis into an opportunity? OpenSource it!
- Ian Sparks.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Brad Clements" <bkc@murkworks.com> To: <zope@zope.org> Sent: Friday, May 05, 2000 3:25 PM Subject: Re: [Zope] Interbase DB
On 5 May 2000, at 9:38, Olivier Deckmyn wrote:
When looking for Interbase on python.org, one can find :
http://www.python.org/topics/database/modules.html
where there seem to exists at least one python module to connect to Interbase RDBMS ...
This could be a starting point for a DAInterbase?
Yes, thats Kinterbasdb. I wrote to the author a few weeks ago, but never received a reply.
Brad Clements, bkc@murkworks.com (315)268-1000 http://www.murkworks.com (315)268-9812 Fax netmeeting: ils://ils.murkworks.com AOL-IM: BKClements
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