[Info-vax] SQLite port for OpenVMS (Re: Is there currently a functioning link for hobbyist licenses?)

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2015-03-11 13:56:03 +0000, Jan-Erik Soderholm said:

> OK, I have read up a bit on SQLite. I have a hard time seeing why VMS 
> would be a prime candidate for SQLite.

Vastly more flexible than RMS, and with much easier licensing and lower 
costs than using Oracle Rdb or Oracle Classic, for starters.

That's before discussing and dealing with source code that already uses 
SQLite, of course.

> Might work OK for Firefox to keep track of the setup things in the 
> local browser, but that is a single user environment. OK, they say that 
> SQLite is the most widely deployed database product in the world. 
> Right, hard to beat 500 Miljon Firefox "users". But how many of them 
> has actively selected SQLite? :-)

Far more than chose Oracle Rdb on an AlphaServer DS20 running OpenVMS 
Alpha, most likely, and there are probably things in your environment 
that might work well with SQLite, even with Rdb around.  (Though having 
Oracle licenses means that cost has already been paid, that there is 
usually familiarity with the Oracle database products, and many with a 
general preference to have fewer database products around.   So a site 
with an AlphaServer DS20 box with Oracle licenses probably isn't the 
biggest market for SQLite.  Though some sites with that configuration 
might still look to SQLite to reduce their costs, maybe not on the core 
servers, but on the other boxes which don't already have Oracle 
licenses.)

SQLite is one of the stock databases on a number of platforms, and it 
embeds easily directly into applications.

It's exceedingly popular in the embedded space, and it's quite popular 
on Linux, Android / ASOS, OS X, iOS and a number of other places.  If 
you have a smart phone, you've almost certainly used apps that use 
SQLite.

For some local work, I've been pondering whether it'll be easier to 
embed it or to deal with RMS, and right now SQLite is winning.

> B.t.w, the product is called SQLite. SQLite3 is a specific command line 
> tool to do some DBA things. It is also the prefix of some of the API 
> calls.

BTW: SQLite3 is version 3 of SQLite.  SQLite4 is also more recently 
available.  <http://www.sqlite.org/src4/doc/trunk/www/design.wiki>

> The architecture of SQLite is using what is usualy called "Dynamic 
> SQL". The SQL statements are sent to the API's in clear text even in 
> runtime. It is just a function call from C with the SQL statement as a 
> paramater.

Yeah; it's not entirely clear that preprocessing those makes sense, but 
there might be room for some simplifications to the API in that area — 
though the precompiler would also need to know a fair amount about C 
syntax there, to get the interface from the language to the SQLite 
library correct.  The Rdb C precompiler had its foibles in that 
particular area, from experience — some standard C syntax just didn't 
pass muster with the Rdb C precompiler, and you had to change your C 
code to get it to work.

The test coverage on SQLite is somewhere between gonzo and legendary, FWIW.


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