Hi everybody,

I've been mulling over the possibility of writing a universal DB
command line interface program. The finished product would function in
the mode of Oracle's SQL*Plus or PostgreSQL's psql. The utility of
this program would lie in its ability to make multiple simultaneous
connections to different types of databases and to move data among them
arbitrarily. The design of the new CLI would be highly modular so that
new interface modules could be added easily.

Has this been considered or attempted before?

I would like to be able to do things like this:

CLI> connect to foo;
Connected to Oracle instance FOO

CLI> connect to bar;
Connected to SyBase instance BAR

CLI> select * from foo.tbl into bar.tbl;
42 rows selected

.... that sort of thing.

Thoughts?

simplicissimus (AT) gmail (DOT) com wrote:
I have two thoughts:

1. Hasn't this been done already?

Here's a few similar projects I found on Sourceforge:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/sqlmore
http://sourceforge.net/projects/schweasel
http://sourceforge.net/projects/henplus

This isn't all of those I found on sourceforge, with a few searches on
keywords like "sql*plus", "sql shell", and "database independent cli".
I'm not even including commercial options, or those hosted on other
open-source sites.

2. Besides, it seems like fewer and fewer people appreciate CLI tools
these days. Someone like me might use this kind of tool, but if it were
a plugin for Eclipse or an Ajax Firefox extension or something, it would
probably find a larger audience.

Regards,
Bill K.

I don't mean to be a wet blanket. If you want to do this project,
either because no other existing tool does what you want, or you just
want to have the experience, then by all means go for it.

Regards,
Bill K.

simplicissimus (AT) gmail (DOT) com wrote:
Yes. And there are a handful of tools of this kind. Try searching at
freshmeat.net.

Why not take a look at the existing Open Source tools available and see
if one of them has been designed and written the way you like. If
anything is missing, add it :-)

Besides giving you a head start, its also a great way of making new friends.

Regards,

Michael.
--
Which is more dangerous? TV guided missiles or TV guided families?
I am less likely to answer usenet postings by anonymous authors.
Visit my home page at http://michael.zedeler.dk/

Hi,

What you described is a subject that IBM has spent years researching.
Perhaps these published papers provide a view into some of the
technical challenges.

http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/sj41-4.html

The commercial product is called Websphere Information Integrator
(WASII).

Setup is easy:
- install native db drivers (sqlnet, etc.)
- install WASII
- define source logins
- map remote source tables

Benefits include:
- federated data source access
- SQL optimization
- data type translation
- function compensation
- etc.

The technology not only works w/ traditional relational data sources
but also w/ "non relational" sources such as XML, spreadsheet,
text files, etc.

In addition, you'll probably want search capabilities on top of the
integrated sources to add value.

a concern depending on the data volume, network resources, data access
frequency, etc. You'll proably want some form of local data caching
capability either in memory
or some form of replication for data placment to facilitate.

There is a series of white paper on this topic:

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerwork...by=All%20types

Here are a couple of forums of interest:

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerwork...rum=757&cat=19
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerwork...rum=736&cat=19


Good luck!

simplicissimus (AT) gmail (DOT) com wrote:

simplicissimus (AT) gmail (DOT) com wrote:
ms access USING odbc

Oh, You wanted a 1980's style command line interface.
I would bet there's something in the PERL archives that fits your
requirements.

Is that anywhere near standard SQL? I don't think so. Why would you
not use

INSERT INTO bar.tbl ( select * from foo.tbl );

?

If you are writing this only for yourself, I guess your syntax is okay,
but if you plan to share this (either as freeware or commercial) with
others, I suggest you stay closer to standard SQL.

Ed.

On 26 Jun 2006 10:41:02 -0700, "Ed Prochak" <edprochak (AT) gmail (DOT) com>
wrote:

[snip]

I do. It is one clause different.

Because the latter requires that bar.tbl already exist?

[snip]

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

"Ed Prochak" <edprochak (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:

<http://www.openoffice.org/product/base.html> and JDBC.

SQL/CLI is a an ANSI/ISO standard that means "Call Level Interface"
(think ODBC), so you will need a better name.