PostgreSQL support

[fmassot]

Hi,

 

Do you think of including the support of PostgreSQL in a new version?

 

Regards.

[wizardsandwars]

Database layer abstration is on the workboard, but I do not believe it is complete, not will it be included in the next stable release.

 

Personally, I've never used PostgreSQL. Is it fully ANSI compliant? Does it accept T-SQL? Does it support bitwise indexing?

[dreamscape]

not sure what some of those things like T-SQL and bitwise indexing are, but PostgreSQL is more ANSI standard than mySQL is. However, the general consensus seems to be that mySQL is faster for web applications. But on the other end, PostgreSQL seems to be a better choice when needing complex queries, complex database design, transactions, etc...

 

For the web front, mySQL is probably what you want, just because the focus of mySQL is faster speeds for web applications. However, on the back-end it might be better to use PostgreSQL for statistical and analytical tasks...

 

One isn't necessarily better than the other, though PostgreSQL does offer more features of traditional RDBMS than mySQL does and better complies with ANSI standards.

 

But to answer the original question, probably not... even if the DB abstraction layer is completed for the next release, there are a number of queries that use mySQL only functions or features. These queries would need to be changes to standard, and all queries would need to be kept simple to work across different RDBMS, or a system would need to be put in place where each RDBMS had its own set of queries.

[wizardsandwars]

Lol, funny that question should come up, huh Dreamscape? Aren't you working on that exact same functionality for another project?

[dreamscape]

Yeah... it is kind of funny to look around and see the number of projects that have database abstraction layers, which just allows the program to communicate with different databases, but only offer support for one type of RDBMS because some of the queries don't work exactly as is from one RDBMS to another (mainly select statements).

 

Abstracting database communication, you would think it also makes sense to abstract database querying, unless your queries and needs are so simple that one set of queries will work across all RDBMS, but that is highly unlikely.

[wizardsandwars]

Yup, not to mention that once a datbase is big enough, which I'm sure we are all hoping will eventually become the case, MySQL will no longer be sufficient.

 

That's why you never see the bigger websites using OSCommerce. MySQL jsut isn't quite robust enough to handle *really* large amounts of data (think 100gb +)

[cannuck1964]

I am always surprised that the DB abstraction layer and the actual SQL is imbedded in the php with no thought to any separation. At the least I would have thought the queries could be separated out in some fashion, and made more T-SQL complient, which most major DB engines follow.

 

Well maybe the DB abstraction layer will deal with some of these issues, and supposedly, there is already an inno DB layer made up for MS3. I would still like to see it compatable with MS SQL, Access, Oracal and DB2 at the least. Bring the DB layer and cart system in line with many of the more main stream Big Business DB tools, would only make osCommerce mature enough to use out of the box for larger coperations.

 

Cheers,

Peter M.

[wizardsandwars]

MS SQL, Access, Oracal and DB2

 

And Sybase. You can't leave out the cheapest of all of the good OLTP DBMS. I would think that Sybase would be a natural fit for an open source project such as this one.

 

Access

 

<shudder>