Hi all,

My app currently supports Windows OS including XP, Vista and 7 and
I'd like to expand to support Mac as well and is in the process of
selecting a simple database for mos of the Mac(s) in the market.
Three key requirements for the Mac platform:
a) The database platform must be free so that I can bundle it with my
app
b) Exporting/migrating my current Access database to it would be
fairly easy.
Alternatively, I may be able to dig up SQL DDL script and DML script
to perform this task.
c) It would be bundled with my app, hence, its installation and
running can be configured /scripted.

Background Information
----------------------------------
An app has already been designed and developed and in the market for
Windows users and when I initially designed it about three years ago I
used
MS SQL Server Express as the back-end data storage vehicle... but the
"Express" installation wasn't reliable enough, hence, I switched to
Access and considering less than 1/3 of market share for the personal
computing at that time for Mac, I decided to go with Windows first...
and here's the app's website if interested in further info about it,
http://www.knowledgenotebook.com/

Current Status
--------------------
- mySQL does not seem to fit the bill because of its license issue
- postgreSQL, not a good option, issues w/ installation, start,
connection etc. etc.
- SQLite seems promising at a glance, however, it does not have a way
import an existing database nor it supports native SQL code because
it's not a database engine... (correct me if I'm wrong)

Based on the above info, what do you think of IBM DB2 (for Mac)?
Would it be a strong candidate for the need?

Thank you.

sqlite may fulfill your requirements.

Look at http://sqlite.org/cvstrac/wiki?p=ConverterTools

particularly http://code.google.com/p/mdb-sqlite/

main area of concern might be locking. If you use multi-user data-entry you may need a different rdbms.


cheers,
Joost

On Nov 26, 12:10*pm, jstam <jstamul... (AT) googlemail (DOT) com> wrote:
Interesting. Two more questions:
a) I'd like to try it with my Windows 7 first, what would I need to do
to get it up and running? Meaning, ready to use tools like mdb-
sqlite?
b) Does it support something like HSQLite (hypersonic...) driver? My
code base requires setting up a data source.

Thanks.

On 2011-11-26 16:32, justaguy wrote:
[...]
There is a specific forum for express-c:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/fo...pa?forumID=805

Unfortunate, the frequency of usenet posts in this and other groups is
asymptotically reaching zero, which implies that there are fewer and
fewer that reads them. A pity IMO

/Lennart

"The world is changing. Who now has the strength to stand against the
armies of Isengard and Mordor? To stand against the might of Sauron and
Saruman and the union of the two towers? Together, Lord Sauron, we shall
rule this Middle-Earth. The old world will burn in the fires of
industry. Forests will fall. A new order will rise. We will drive the
machinery of war with the sword and the spear and the iron fist of the
Orc. We have only to remove those who oppose us."

On 2011-11-27 10:52, Lennart Jonsson wrote:
[...]

to avoid confusion, this refers to comp.databases.ibm-db2

/Lennart

[...]

On 27 nov, 11:36, Lennart Jonsson <erik.lennart.jons... (AT) gmail (DOT) com>
wrote:
Unfortunately Google confirms: http://groups.google.com/group/comp.....ibm-db2/about,
with Serge being the man to beat.

It peaked around 10 years ago. I assume this is true for most
newsgroups by the way, with more sexy alternatives being available.

--
Frederik Engelen

Frederik Engelen wrote:

It's somewhat a question of why? With more and more ISPs omitting NNTP
servers, there is a distinct lack of awareness of the news groups by new
users. Sad - but the decline is apparent across most of the groups I follow
and many are now no more than gateways from dedicated forums. That
fragmentation makes gathering information harder all the time.

--
Will Honea

a) I'd like to try it with my Windows 7 first, what would I need to do
to get it up and running? Meaning, ready to use tools like mdb-
sqlite?

That all depends on your requirements and the number of your tables, queries etc.. I can think of several rules of thumb.
1. SQLite stores all tables in one file (like ms-access' MDB) but it can not do record level locking like ms-access. If you have a system that mainly gets filled from several sources and where a couple of ms-acces-linked tables are used to do minor edits by an admin, you may be easily be able to convert mdb to sqlite and get the stuff working. If you have a system that collects manully typed info (order processing, for example) with several people typing info. Do not even try sqlite becsause you'll end up with a drama.

2. If you have used stored procedures attached to your data-source you willcompletely need to redesign these for your new environment.

3. In Sqlite you can store views just like you can store queries, but if you have many paramtereized queries in access you'll need to re-design those.

4. MS-access allows nice combinations of queries to get used in reports andforms ad it allows macros which could be time-consuming to find alternatives for.

5. The design principle behind sqlite is freedom. In access you can partly enforce fieldlengths etc, inside the database because the properties of fields will have been copied from the source-table. This allows quick form generation in MS-Access. In SQLite you can easily write a long string in a char-field and sqlite will try to accomodate. You cannot enforce this by hoping the database-driver will generate an error or simply cut-off the length.

6. I'd probably explore the possiblities and potential problems a bit by first implementing an ODBC driver of SQLite and create a database. Configure linked tables in ms-access and fill SQLTables from MS-Access. You'll probably be impressed with the speed and flexibility of SQLite, but you may also discover some limitations. One great feature of SQLite is that it will not matter whether you put the file and driver on MAC, Linux or Win you can just copy the sqlite file and it will work on all of them.




b) Does it support something like HSQLite (hypersonic...) driver? My
code base requires setting up a data source.

HSQL and H2 both have clearly focussed on being small, supporting in-memorytables and being quite full-fledged. They support more features than SQLite. Depending on the size of your requirements I would personally prefer MySQL or even Firebird because of their large support-communities. Mysql can have the server running on Amazon or in Google's brand new CloudSQL.


Hope this helps.

Derby if you can use Java.