[Info-vax] Best tools for remote MySQL access

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 3/25/2021 11:06 AM, Rich Jordan wrote:
> We have a customer currently running their website on a wintel
> server/IIS with MS SQL Server backing it.  Their onsite VMS servers
> communicate with the webserver via the FreeTDS package via DEC BASIC,
> the only licensed compiler they have.
> 
> They want to move to a hosted solution for the website, and are
> currently evaluating Wordpress.  The backing database there is MySQL.
> I did a little poking and see some DEC C-interface options that could
> be called from DEC BASIC, and I'm pretty sure we could use STunnel to
> provide the secure connection to the hosting site.  We might also
> consider putting Python on the VMS box to do the MySQL interfacing
> since it supports it pretty well.
> 
> If anyone has done similar are there specific tools or methods you
> would recommend for making this connection?

MySQL has a C library that is ported to VMS. Just get MySQL/MariaDB for
VMS and it will be there.

I am sure that it can be used from Basic.

I have written a Pascal wrapper and it was not hard. I do not
think Basic would be much harder.

There are free programming languages available on VMS
with MySQL support. You mention Python. There is also Java -
the standard MySQL JDBC driver works fine on VMS (it is type 4).

There are plenty of options, including:

?---Basic code---libmysql wrapper---libmysql---remote MySQL database

?---Python code---pymysql module---remote MySQL database

?---Java code---MySQL JDBC---remote MySQL database

?---Basic code---local files/message queue---Python code---pymysql 
module---remote MySQL database

?---Basic code---local files/message queue---Java code---MySQL 
JDBC---remote MySQL database

Arne