I have done some SQL Server interfacing and I agree with Bill that using 8.0 or 9.0 64 bit certainly makes the task easier since SQL doesn't have the length limits on names. Also keep in mind that SQL only has datetime fields so if you are trying to mesh with an existing R:Base database with straight date columns you have to adjust for that. I found that user rights on the SQL side can be an issue - especially when you are an outsider tapping into an existing SQL database - most of the time the database administrators are very leery of allowing update and insert access to their database. I haven't encountered too many speed issues, but I am sure that it is dictated by a lot of factors (database size, network access, etc.).
Steve Steve Vellella Office: 520-498-2256 Cell: 520-250-6498 From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bill Downall Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 12:09 PM To: RBASE-L Mailing List Subject: [RBASE-L] - Re: RBase and SQL Server Karen and Jan, I fiddled with R:BASE as a front end to SQL Server briefly, over a year ago. from what I recall, you may want 8.0 or 9.0 64, so that you don't have the short name limits of 7.6. Aggregate commands like SELECT COUNT(*) or any GROUP BY in R:BASE against MSSQL data sources were incredibly dreadfully slow. It clearly was actually counting. There may be tricks to work around this, like creating views in SQL Server that do the aggregating for you, then querying the view only from R:BASE. At the time, R:BASE got confused by the MS SQL default schema owner prefix "dbo". For example, a table named Customers might appear in SQL Server as dbo.Customers, and sometimes would require the prefix in R:BASE, and sometimes would not know what to do with the prefix if you used it. It depended on whether you were attaching or detaching or querying. I think sdetach dbo.Customers didn't work, and neither did sdetach Customers, but using the idquotes character did work: sdetach `dbo.customers` I didn't spend much time in trial and error, others may have more info. Bill On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 1:37 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: I didn't want to gum up the list with a topic others might not be interested in, but perhaps it should be on here. So if anyone has experience and wants to share, please do. Interested in knowing some things like: what version of RBase are you using, what driver to access the SQL db, any multi user or speed issues to watch for, commands in RBase that do not work against SQL data, updating the SQL data from RBase forms, etc... Karen Karen, I'm with you and want to hear the answer. I just received an RFP that the only requirement is that it be SQL server acessible and I'm trying to figure out how to respond to it. Jan
