There has been quite a bit of followup to my first posted ramblings; I've
recieved lots of ideas, most of them very good. Fundamentally, though,
there's the idea that this isn't really an "Inline" package, as in
"(pre)compile this bit of native language in some other language-space and
then make it available to my perl script". It's more of a "automatically
build perl subroutines for me that make use of DBI". So maybe it's more
of a DBIx::Inline::SQL or somesuch.
Ignore the bits about using C-like comments for subroutine definitions;
that was a crackpot idea. I've had many other suggestions for syntax,
like:
SCALAR get_name ($id) { # or maybe even $get_name($id);
SELECT name FROM users WHERE id = $id;
}
VOID set_name ($id, $name) { # or: set_name($id)
UPDATE users SET name = $name WHERE id = $id;
}
LIST get_users () { # or: @get_users()
SELECT name FROM users ORDER BY id;
}
etc.
Thanks in advance for any commentary or advice.
-Aaron
On Fri, 1 Mar 2002, Tim Bunce wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 28, 2002 at 10:14:08PM -0800, Dean Arnold wrote:
> > Just stumbled on this in c.l.p.modules, thought it deserves to be
> > bounced around here...IMHO, this would be *very* gnarly!
>
> Bounced around on dbi-users, that is, not dbi-dev.
> Also, I've CC'd the author.
>
> Tim.
>
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Aaron J Mackey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.modules
> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2002 7:54 AM
> > Subject: RFC: Inline::SQL
> >
> >
> > >
> > > No real code yet, just some example usage; I'm "trolling" for feedback and
> > > concerns before I really get into it:
> > >
> > > #!/usr/bin/perl -Tw
> > >
> > > use Inline;
> > >
> > > my ($host, $user, $pw, $db) = qw(localhost me youwish mydb);
> > >
> > > Inline->bind(SQL => DATA,
> > > DBD => 'mysql',
> > > HOST => $host,
> > > USER => $user,
> > > PW => $pw,
> > > DB => $db);
> > >
> > > my $id = get_user_id('phooey');
> > > set_user_name($id, 'phoooey');
> > >
> > > my @users = get_users();
> > >
> > > __DATA__
> > > /* get_user_id($name) */
> > > select id
> > > from users
> > > where name like $name
> > >
> > > /* set_user_name($id, $name) */
> > > update users
> > > set name = $name
> > > where id = $id
> > >
> > > /* get_users() */
> > > select id, name
> > > from users
> > > order by name asc
> > >
> > >
> > > To flesh out the ideas, here are some of my own comments:
> > >
> > > 1. We need to specify connection metadata (DBD driver to use, and
> > > connection parameters: we can specify those at import time (use Inline SQL
> > > => DATA, HOST => 'myhost', etc), or at run time via Inline->bind(), or in
> > > a metadata section of the __DATA__ stream (not sure I like that so much).
> > >
> > > 2. Inline::SQL would parse the __DATA__ stream looking for function
> > > prototypes between /* */ C comments (suggestions for other
> > > syntax/delimiters welcome), followed by sql statements that make use of
> > > the variable names (i.e. none of this ?, ?, ? stuff); I think this yields
> > > more readable Perl code [rather than $sth->prepare($name, $id), we have
> > > set_name($id, $name) ].
> > >
> > > 3. Inline::SQL would use DBI methods to handle the requests (with
> > > prepare_cached and whatnot on transmogrified SQL statements
> > > containing appropriate ? placeholders).
> > >
> > > 4. We'd use wantarray() to figure out whether we need to return an array
> > > of rows from a select statement, or whether to return a single row.
> > >
> > > Drawbacks of Inline::SQL :
> > >
> > > 1. Don't see a clean way to do the usual prepare(), while(fetch()) looping
> > > you'd normally do with DBI; Inline::SQL functions will always return all
> > > of the results (potentially very large sets).
> > >
> > > Others I'm sure; only just beginning to think about it.
> > >
> > > Feedback very welcome, as always.
> > >
> > > -Aaron
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
>
--
Aaron J Mackey
Pearson Laboratory
University of Virginia
(434) 924-2821
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
