There is no eval in DAL. Actually b) is safer. The overhead is
negligible compared to the database IO times. You are doing the right
thing

On Jul 10, 1:55 am, rb <rbspg...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thx for the speedy reply. Here's another question:
>
> 3) Because I'm doing a thick client, it creates db queries (SQL CRUD)
> which need to be communicated back to the controller which must query
> the db. The two ways to do this are:
>
> a) use a SQL statement within a executesql command, or
>
> b) create a DAL row selection criteria string and a column selection
> criteria string, send them back to the controller which feeds them
> through a python eval statement within a DAL function.
>
> It is always pointed out that b) is dangerous because it's possible
> for unintended string matter to get fed into the eval - which can reek
> havoc. However only *my* strings from the client which I have
> carefully massaged will ever be sent (e.g. I collect the column names
> from the db beforehand and provide them to the db().select(<fieldnames-
> here>) statement). Further, if I craft a SQL string then it too can
> suffer from bad input. I just have to be extra careful when creating
> the query strings.
>
> However if I use a) then I lose all of the functionality provided by
> the DAL. I've never been a fan of SQL and I'd like to avoid it in
> favour of what the DAL can offer.
>
> So I've implemented b) and it is working. My questions are:
>
> i) am I missing the obvious? Is there a much simpler/better way to do
> this?
> ii) does the DAL add much overhead?
>
> On Jul 9, 9:21 pm, mdipierro <mdipie...@cs.depaul.edu> wrote:
>
> > On Jul 9, 11:04 pm, rb <rbspg...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Hi all,
>
> > > I'm using Web2py to serve a wxPython thick client via XMLRPC. I'm
> > > currently using SQLite (I like the zero db config ;-) and I have a few
> > > questions:
>
> > > 1) I have missed how to specify table constraints across several
> > > fields (in SQLite). For example, in a table the primary key consists
> > > of two fields - how do I specify that these two fields must comprise a
> > > UNIQUE value? In other dbs I could use executesql to just give the SQL
> > > commands, but SQLite (unless I'm mistaken) only allows table
> > > constraints within the CREATE TABLE SQL command. So can this be done
> > > in Web2py?
>
> > You cannot create such constraint database side from
> > web2py. Your options are:
> > 1) enforce the constraint at the validators level
> > 2) create the table outside web2py and set migrate=False
>
> > > 2) I'm confused as to which models get run when a controller is
> > > accessed. If I have db.py and uom.py models and I access the uom
> > > controller, what happens? From stepping thru the debugger I saw db.py
> > > get run first, then uom.py and then uom.py again (weird). I've
> > > simplified things down to just one (db.py) file for now, but I'm
> > > wondering if the infrastructure's intent is to run all model files
> > > upon each and every controller access. Oh, my access of the controller
> > > is via XMLRPC function (if that changes anything).
>
> > All of them. Alphabetically. There has been some discussion on whether
> > there should be exceptions to this rule. It would be easy to inplmenet
> > but there was no consensus on whether an improvement was necessary.
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