Re: sql-odbc: accessing row elements by column name?

[address@hidden]

Hi Carl,

I extended our SQL-ODBC library to be able to lookup by column names a
while back, it is still only in our development sources. I also created an
example database viewer using DUIM that used this functionality. At the
time, we discussed a suggestion of mine internally about modeling the
<result-set> as a new kind of collection that obeyed the table and forward
iteration protocols, so you could use it in either way. We created a patch
for a different customer that I think had this functionality in it, so I'll
see if I can dig that up for you.

I think it would be a good idea to come up with a Java-like Open Source
library for Dylan (DDBC?). Ideally we'd use the DUIM model of an abstract
API with multiple backend implementation. Anyone interested in working
together to come up with a design for this?

Thanks,

Andy

P.S. I don't imagine there'd be a problem with distributing the Dylan
SQL-ODBC source code, I'll check into that possibility.



                                                                                                              
                    Carl Gay                                                                                  
                    <carlgay@attb        To:     info-dylan@ai.mit.edu                                        
                    i.com>               cc:                                                                  
                    Sent by:             Subject:     sql-odbc: accessing row elements by column name?        
                    "Gregory T.                                                                               
                    Sullivan"                                                                                 
                    <gregs@ai.mit                                                                             
                    .edu>                                                                                     
                                                                                                              
                                                                                                              
                    09/07/2002                                                                                
                    08:00 PM                                                                                  
                                                                                                              
                                                                                                              




I've been playing around with FunDev's SQL-ODBC library and I don't
see any way to access row elements by column name.  It seems the
returned <result-set> is a collection whos elements are vectors and
you have to index directly into the row vector.  It seems to me this
requires that I build into my program the knowledge of what order
the columns are in.  (Plus it requires that either I don't ever
"select * ..." or that the database will guarantee that the order
in the "create table" statement is the order in which the columns
are returned in each row.  I don't know enough about DBMS's to
know if that's always true.)  I like JDBC's ability to access
row elements by name.  Is there any way to do that in the SQL-ODBC
library?