[GSOC] Database API draft proposal

[Daniel Gibson]

Am 02.04.2011 22:03, schrieb Christian Manning:
> Hello all,
> 
> This is my first draft proposal for a Database API for Google Summer Of
> Code. I have never written a document such as this so any and all
> feedback is welcome.
> 
> Thanks
> ---------------------------------
> 
> Synopsis
> --------
> An API for databases is a common component of many languages' standard
> library, though Phobos currently lacks this. This project will remedy
> this by providing such an API and also begin to utilise it with
> interfaces for some Database Management Systems (DBMS). I believe this
> will benefit the D community greatly and will help bring attention and
> developers to the language.
> 
> Details
> -------
> This project takes influence from the Java Database Connectivity API
> (JDBC), the Python Database API v2 and other similar interfaces. The
> idea is that any database interface created for use with D will follow
> the API so that the only thing to change is the database back-end being
> used. This will make working with databases in D a much easier experience.
> 
> I plan to have several interfaces in a database module which are then
> implemented for specific DBMSs.
> For example:
> 
> module database;
> 
> interface Connection {
>     //method definitions for connecting to databases go here.
> }
> 
> Then in an implementation of MySQL for example:
> 
> module mysql;
> 
> import database;
> 
> class Connect : Connection {
>     //implement defined methods tailoring to MySQL.
> }
> 
> What goes in to these interfaces will be decided in conjunction with the
> D community so that there is minimal conflict and it will benefit as
> many circumstances as possible. I believe this to be the best route to
> take as I cannot speak for everyone who will be using this.
> 
> Using the API created I plan to create an example implementation,
> initially wrapping around the MySQL C API. This will be a good starting
> point for this project and more can be created, time permitting.
> 
> About Me
> --------
> My name is Christian Manning and I am a second year undergraduate
> studying Computer Science at De Montfort University.
> I've become interested in D over time after reading about it several
> years ago. I got myself "The D Programming Language" and went from
> there. Although I've not done anything useful in D as I've learnt mainly
> C and Java and am unable to use D for my university projects, I think
> I'm capable of achieving the goals of this project.

Something I just posted in another thread and I think is quite important
for D's Database support:

I think most databases (and their libs) are under a license that
is not free enough for Phobos (SQLite is an exception - it's Public
domain - and thus can and should be shipped with Phobos).
So I guess Phobos' DB support should be written in a way that allows
plugging in a DB driver that is distributed independently and under a
different license (this makes sense anyway, because maintaining drivers
for dozens of databases in Phobos is too much work). Maybe we'd need
proper DLL support for that?
This model is used by ODBC and JDBC as well.

So you should probably think about how external drivers (not shipped
with Phobos and not known when Phobos is compiled) can be implemented
and loaded - but maybe this needs proper DLL/shared library support that
is not yet available afaik.

Cheers,
- Daniel