[Zope] Simple tabular data. Do I need SQL?

[Rik Hoekstra]

>On my web site, I have made a "News" page. The "News" items themselves
>are listed as a "lines"-property named "Items" on the News folder:
>
>date1;text1
>date2;text2
>...
>
>They are accessed in a dtml-method:
>
>------------------------
><dtml-var standard_html_header>
><h2><dtml-var title></h2>
><DL>
><dtml-in Items>
><dtml-let lin="_.string.split(_['sequence-item'],';')"
>          dat="lin[0]"
>          txt="lin[1]">
><P>
><DT><dtml-var dat></DT>
><DD><dtml-var txt></DD>
></P>
></dtml-let>
></dtml-in>
></DL>
><dtml-var standard_html_footer>
>-------------------------
>
>Since this is a small listing, this is still manageable. But: I do find the
>";"-delimited fields a bit hackish, so I'm looking for a better way to
>handle this kind of very simple tabular data.
>
>Do I really have to go all the way to a proper relational database and
>learn SQL? Or is there another way? If I do need to go with a real
>database, do I have to pay attention to the "Demo Only" warnings in
>GadFly?


No, as long as it doesn't grow too much Gadfly will probably be fine (it is
an in memory db)
Another possibility is to use TinyTable, a contributed product by Ty Sarna.
It's at http://www.zope.org/Members/tsarna/TinyTable
Still another possibility is to use the Catalog to catalog news items. The
Catalog approach has the advantage that your news items will be monitored
dynamically. The Catalog is built into Zope


hth

Rik