Re: Need information about web database ...

Remy Giard wrote:

> Hi, I know Oracle and Access but i'm a beginner in web database. I want
> to build a database where i could diffuse some informations on the web.
> This database will maybe be big so i need i fast enough software. The
> question is, What is the best software to develop a web database, Access
> ? Oracle ? or others ? Do i need to learn CGI ?
>
> You suggestion is welcome !!!
> thanks

Access if definitely too slow for anything serious. In general, Oracle is the database to use. Although if sheer speed for read operations is all that counts, and your data if fairly static, MySQL might be the way to go. But MySQL does not implement constraints, so use this one with caution.

As for CGI, yes you need to learn CGI , but keep in mind CGI is a simple protocol not a language. CGI can be written with any language that can read stdin, write stdout and read environment variables. Which leads to the question, What web server are you using?

If Apache, you can use perl or php to connect your database through an embedded interpreter. I've used perl in this context, so I can't comment on php. But perl is very easy for this task. Get the CGI.pm and DBI libraries. Checking the CPAN sites you'll find all kinds of perl libraries for generating HTML, Date handling, and lots of other tasks you may need to do.

If Oracle Application Server, then you can use PL/SQL to connect your database to the web. But again your using (as I recall, I blew this one off and went with Apache/mod_perl) CGI through an object style interface.

If Netscape, you can use server side JavaScript to access your database and handle your CGI processing. With JavaScript you talk to your database with a database object, and CGI through a request object.

I suppose Java/JDBC is an option as well, but I haven't used that yet, so I can't comment. Of these options that I have used and listed above. My preference is for perl, since perl has the most library support. With perl there is a library avaible for just about anything you would want to do. And if no library exists, it is an fairly simple to write your own perl code for handling the task. Received on Mon Mar 29 1999 - 07:41:26 CST