Subject: Re: ODBC driver for Applixware and Unix
To: lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu (Thomas G. Lockhart)
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 10:14:06 -0400 (EDT)
> The next release of Applixware for Linux will have database support (not
> guaranteed I suppose, but it is in the beta). At the moment, the release
Excellent news. This was sorely missing.
> will have an ODBC driver for MySQL. Applix is willing to try to ship an
> ODBC interface for PostgreSQL. What would it take to do it? I suspect we
> would need to get things together fairly quickly to have a shot at
> getting into the release.
>
> This is a native Unix-hosted ODBC interface, not the WIN32 driver,
> though I don't know what would be different about the source code. I
> also am not certain if we would be allowed to hack the MySQL driver
> (don't know the copyright situation on it).
>
> Speak up if you are interested in helping, have information which could
> help get us going, or can suggest someone else who might be a resource.
> I have a few more details on the MySQL ODBC driver at my office if that
> would be helpful.
>
My understanding of the ODBC business is, at best, incomplete. The
facts as I know them are...
1) There is, in the postgresql distribution, a win32/win16 ODBC driver.
This is a dll that compiles for win32 that (as I understand things)
maps odbc calls to the postgresql frontend-backend protocol, which
runs over a tcp/ip connection to the postgresql server.
This seems to be self-contained, and does not seem to use any of
the other interface libraries.
This would have to be converted to compile under unix, since it is
written in microsoft C.
2) Another approach would be to take someone's odbc framework and add
calls to one of the two postgresql interface libraries (libpq or
libpq++). Depending on the copyright of the MySql interface
this would seem to be the easiest option. Without this we would
still need the necessary odbc headers defining the functions.
3) I am unclear about whether this needs to be included in the Applixware
distribution. Would it be enough for the odbc interface loader
(whatever that is called) to know enough to find a shared library
that supplied the ODBC functionality and communicated with a
postgresql back-end? This would allow the postgresql link to
be upgraded independently. My understanding is inperfect.
4) As I understand things, Uwe is pretty close to getting a native
postgresql interface by modifying one of the existing native
interfaces. Is this a viable approach?
5) The applixware documentation refers to the Visigenic ODBC SDK. Does
this help?
As for resources, I am willing to _try_ to test whatever I can, but
my ODBC understanding is limited. I have done some work with applixware
elf-c interfaces.
In closing, I would like to state that this is a very important project.
-- cary
Cary O'Brien
cobrien@access.digex.net
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