Subject: [clisp-list] Any interest in a native Oracle interface for CLISP?

From: "John K. Hinsdale" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 21 13:23:01 2002

Hi, I'm just getting back into Lisp after a very long hiatus (OK, I
took the Scheme course from Sussman in 1981) and I'm trying to get
Lisp adopted at my organization.  The catch is we have to deal w/ a
lot of data in Oracle and while I've settled on CLISP as the preferred
Lisp, I don't see an Oracle interface for CLISP.

So, I'm considering writing a *native* Oracle interface, similar to
what seems to be there for Postgres now.  I searched the list archives
and it doesn't seem that anyone is working on such a beast.

I've got a lot of experience w/ programming Oracle's "C" client
libraries, and read over the documents on building add-ons to CLISP,
and frankly it doesn't look like too hard a thing for me to do.

I'm very likely going to do it for my own use, but I am interested to
know if anyone else would like to:

	- use this module to get to Oracle databases from CLISP

	- help test it on platforms other than mine (Intel/Linux)

Would you please get back to me if you are so interested?

In return you may have to answer some Lisp questions from me as I work
to scrape the rust off :0

[N.B.: I have seen suggestions for a socket-level interface to an
Oracle server ... this is not too great as to get decent performance
one really has to load the Oracle client libraries directly into the
process running his program.  The Java people found this out the hard
way with their socket-based "thin client" which was S-L-O-W.]

Assuming all this works out, it may be good to start thinking of a
vendor-independent layer that factors out commonalities among, say
Postgres, Oracle, Syabase, etc... much as the perl folks have done
with the "DBI" and "DBD" interfaces.  But CLISP seems a ways away from
that.

---
John Hinsdale, Alma Mater Software, Inc., Tarrytown, NY 10591-3710 USA
[email-masked] | http://www.alma.com/staff/hin | +1 914 631 4690

---

From: Edi Weitz <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 21 13:50:02 2002

This is not meant to lower CLISP in any way but if your major concern
is a native Oracle interface why don't you use CMUCL with UncommonSQL
<http://ww.telent.net/cliki/UncommonSQL>? This basically is the
vendor independent layer you are looking for.

(CLSQL <http://clsql.med-info.com/> is even more "neutral" because it
is based on UFFI but it currently doesn't support Oracle AFAIK. UFFI
support for CLISP and integration of CLSQL with UncommonSQL is in the
works - see the mailing list archives - but it's not there yet.)

Of course, you could also buy the LispWorks Enterprise Edition
<http://www.xanalys.com/software_tools/products/lwl.html> which comes
with the "original" CommonSQL and full support.

Just my EUR 0.02,
Edi.

"John K. Hinsdale" <[email-masked]> writes:

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---

From: "John K. Hinsdale" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 21 14:22:02 2002

> if your major concern is a native Oracle interface why don't you use
 > CMUCL with UncommonSQL <http://ww.telent.net/cliki/UncommonSQL>? This
 > basically is the vendor independent layer you are looking for.

Right; I looked at this - it is probably where I ultimately want to
be.  I passed it over as I really would like to use CLISP (for
unrelated reasons, incl. it will run on Win32).  So that is why I was
considering the interip solution of making a bare-bones direct layer
to Oracle for CLISP.  I've got a specific project in mind w/ a
deadline.

 > UFFI support for CLISP and integration of CLSQL with UncommonSQL is
 > in the works - see the mailing list archives - but it's not there yet.)

This would be better and ultimately make what I'm proposing obsolete.

 > you could also buy the LispWorks Enterprise Edition

Alas, I'm still in proof-of-concept mode so I doubt I can get my
organization to pay for that.

I'll let the list know how it pans out.  Thanks for your comments.

---

---

From: Sam Steingold <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jun 21 14:35:01 2002

> * In message <[email-masked]>
> * On the subject of "[clisp-list] Any interest in a native Oracle interface for CLISP?"
> * Sent on Fri, 21 Jun 2002 16:22:43 -0400
> * Honorable "John K. Hinsdale" <[email-masked]> writes:
>
> The catch is we have to deal w/ a lot of data in Oracle and while I've
> settled on CLISP as the preferred Lisp, I don't see an Oracle
> interface for CLISP.
> 
> what seems to be there for Postgres now.

indeed, this is a reasonable way to go.
CLISP's FFI is fairly high level which does not play well with the UFFI
design, but might make _your_ life easier.

Please go ahead and ask questions here!

-- 
Sam Steingold (http://www.podval.org/~sds) running RedHat7.2 GNU/Linux
<http://www.camera.org> <http://www.iris.org.il> <http://www.memri.org/>
<http://www.mideasttruth.com/> <http://www.palestine-central.com/links.html>
Even Windows doesn't suck, when you use Common Lisp