Hello! My development team is looking for alternatives to using the ODBC driver for our Postgresql databases for a variety of reasons (easier distribution, some issues with the ODBC driver itself, and features that Postgresql supports but ODBC does not).
We’d like to implement a native Postgresql driver for Clarion and were wondering if there was any documentation for the Clarion file driver interface, or alternatively a base set of source code scaffolding a driver that we could license. We may also be able to pay for consultation for somebody with experience with developing a Clarion file driver.
Any hints or suggestions? Thanks!
We’re currently using Clarion 10 but willing to upgrade to 11 if that would help.
As far as I know there is no DDK (driver development kit), no docs, nothing.
I understand that you goal is FILE,DRIVER(‘Postgresql’) usage in standard browses/forms - just switch the file driver in the dct and voila but I’m afraid it is unattainable goal.
An alternative is a direct access to native postgres libraries (one of the implementations can be found here).
There used to be a driver kit (not for at least 20 years). I recently (2017) asked SV about it, and they said they’d consider reviving it after C11. But I doubt it would be inexpensive, and am not sure it would ever happen.
I’d happily pay for a PG driver. For those waiting for a driver kit from SV, I am happy to offer some quality Rocky Mountain land with ocean views for a very low price.
yes years ago (probably last century) Sean Wilson created a Paradox driver and a dBase driver using the driver kit and (from memory) BDE (Borland Database Engine). That was the only commercial use of the driver kit that I can remember but perhaps others made private use of it.
I don’t know why SV (or was it TS?) stopped selling it - perhaps it caused too much support.
Given the amount of time it’s been between the announcement and non-delivery of the Community edition I don’t anticipate SV doing anything with the releasing of the driver kit this century.
If you really want to pursue this the easiest (but not necessarily cheapest) way would be to hire SuRF as a contractor and have him write what you need.
Me too. I was asking SV about MySQL driver around 2014, but PostgreSQL would work for me as well.
Wondering how many people would also be interested in it. One thing that worries me is that if there are not enough interested customers it will be abandoned at some point like Paradox driver Vietsse mentioned.
To be honest, I am wondering why SV do not offer MySQL and PostgreSQL native drivers, even as a paid add-on. These are in top 10 most popular database engines according to https://db-engines.com/en/ranking . MySQL drivers are fully compatible with MariaDB servers - know for a fact, I’m using MariaDB 10 server with MySQL ODBC driver in Clarion and also with other Python application that handles over 100Gig tables
MySQL seems to be loosing it’s market share, probably for MariaDB, but note that if you combined MySQL and MariaDB scores it would be no.1 on the list.
I can’t help with drivers (other than using the ODBC driver seems fine) - but I’m not sure why one would choose MySQL (or MariaDB) over Postgres. People obviously do, but Postgres is miles ahead in terms of well, everything.
Hey Bruce, Much of that comes down to speed in the early days. MySQL had a huge speed advantage, mostly due to it not implementing anything in SQL that a basic website might not need, Like relational integrity for instance.
Over time Postgres has improved heaps so performance with MySQL has been narrowed a lot, if not exceeded, and MySQL (and Maria) have gained features. But MySQL is still the goto for web stuff and the old benchmarks persist.