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digitalmars.D - Database interface design - was how to build up the library.

reply Steve Teale <steve.teale britseyeview.com> writes:
I'm thinking that for each database that gets covered there will
need to be two modules, like:

etc.c.mysql
etc.mysqld

The etc.c.xxx modules would be completely different between databases -
just translations of the necessary header files. The xxxd modules
would be as similar as possible consistent with allowing the strong
points of individual database systems to show through, and the weak
points of others to be avoided. I don't think all should be reduced
to some LCD.

These modules should attempt to make a good range of capabilities
available to the D programmer, but they not have to be all encompassing.
Those users who want to do really fancy things can drop back to the
low-level interface. They should probably have the following capabilities:

1) Establishing and closing database connections.

2) The capability to execute literal SQL statements - execSQL()
if you like. Some of these will generate result sets, of which more below.

3) The capability to create prepared statements with in and out
parameters and association of the parameters with a source, and
then to execute these. This breaks down into several components/
capabilities, which could be labeled:

3a) createPreparedStatement() - marshal parameters, associate them
with a sourceand have the server prepare the statement.

3b) execStatement() - for those SQL statements that don't have a
result set.

3c) execStatementIncremental()/getNext() - execute the prepared statement,
then fetch the result rows one at a time into some kind of result set.

3d) execStatementAll() - execute the prepared statement and get all
the resulting rows into some kind of result set.

3e) (maybe) execScalar() - do the whole sequence prepare, execute,
and get a single value result set placed into a D variable.

3f) (maybe) execStoredProcedure() - another 'do the whole thing'
capability TBD.

It is when we come to the nature of the result sets that there is
likely to be dissent. I favor arrays of structs, but we should
probably do arrays of arrays of variants too for those situations
where structures can't be sorted out at compile time. There needs
to be some symmetry between what is used here, and what can be used
as input to operations such as a prepared insert. It is of course
vital that this part of each middle layer produce exactly the same
kind of results. Otherwise the top layer could become difficult.

On top of this set of two modules for each database, I envisage a
higher-level module - etc.dbops - that provides a bunch of convenience
templates for various common database operations, spanning the databases.
Once the middle layer is in place, this top layer should be relatively
easy to implement. It should be noted though that all these database
wrappers will be monstrously difficult to test.

I am at the point with MySQL where I can get the result of a plain
old query into an array of a checked structure type. I have the
prepared statement stuff, and know how the result will be created from
a prepared query (the execStatementAll() case) - I just have to plow
through a bit more binding and fetching.

This is probably rather general and vague, but I would like to get
comments so we can iterate toward a practical design.

Thanks
Steve
Oct 07 2011
next sibling parent =?UTF-8?B?QWxleCBSw7hubmUgUGV0ZXJzZW4=?= <xtzgzorex gmail.com> writes:
On 07-10-2011 16:11, Steve Teale wrote:
 I'm thinking that for each database that gets covered there will
 need to be two modules, like:

 etc.c.mysql
 etc.mysqld

 The etc.c.xxx modules would be completely different between databases -
 just translations of the necessary header files. The xxxd modules
 would be as similar as possible consistent with allowing the strong
 points of individual database systems to show through, and the weak
 points of others to be avoided. I don't think all should be reduced
 to some LCD.

 These modules should attempt to make a good range of capabilities
 available to the D programmer, but they not have to be all encompassing.
 Those users who want to do really fancy things can drop back to the
 low-level interface. They should probably have the following capabilities:

 1) Establishing and closing database connections.

 2) The capability to execute literal SQL statements - execSQL()
 if you like. Some of these will generate result sets, of which more below.

 3) The capability to create prepared statements with in and out
 parameters and association of the parameters with a source, and
 then to execute these. This breaks down into several components/
 capabilities, which could be labeled:

 3a) createPreparedStatement() - marshal parameters, associate them
 with a sourceand have the server prepare the statement.

 3b) execStatement() - for those SQL statements that don't have a
 result set.

 3c) execStatementIncremental()/getNext() - execute the prepared statement,
 then fetch the result rows one at a time into some kind of result set.

 3d) execStatementAll() - execute the prepared statement and get all
 the resulting rows into some kind of result set.

 3e) (maybe) execScalar() - do the whole sequence prepare, execute,
 and get a single value result set placed into a D variable.

 3f) (maybe) execStoredProcedure() - another 'do the whole thing'
 capability TBD.

 It is when we come to the nature of the result sets that there is
 likely to be dissent. I favor arrays of structs, but we should
 probably do arrays of arrays of variants too for those situations
 where structures can't be sorted out at compile time. There needs
 to be some symmetry between what is used here, and what can be used
 as input to operations such as a prepared insert. It is of course
 vital that this part of each middle layer produce exactly the same
 kind of results. Otherwise the top layer could become difficult.

 On top of this set of two modules for each database, I envisage a
 higher-level module - etc.dbops - that provides a bunch of convenience
 templates for various common database operations, spanning the databases.
 Once the middle layer is in place, this top layer should be relatively
 easy to implement. It should be noted though that all these database
 wrappers will be monstrously difficult to test.

 I am at the point with MySQL where I can get the result of a plain
 old query into an array of a checked structure type. I have the
 prepared statement stuff, and know how the result will be created from
 a prepared query (the execStatementAll() case) - I just have to plow
 through a bit more binding and fetching.

 This is probably rather general and vague, but I would like to get
 comments so we can iterate toward a practical design.

 Thanks
 Steve
Just a note on module naming: mysqld is misleading - it could mean "mysql daemon". I would recommend just calling it mysql and calling the C interface etc.c.mysqlc or something like this. - Alex
Oct 07 2011
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
On 10/7/11 9:11 AM, Steve Teale wrote:
 I'm thinking that for each database that gets covered there will
 need to be two modules, like:

 etc.c.mysql
 etc.mysqld

 The etc.c.xxx modules would be completely different between databases -
 just translations of the necessary header files. The xxxd modules
 would be as similar as possible consistent with allowing the strong
 points of individual database systems to show through, and the weak
 points of others to be avoided. I don't think all should be reduced
 to some LCD.
Well we may be hasty to go that way. The driver-based approach works well for other languages and APIs - why wouldn't it work for us? The differences across different DBMSs would be mostly in the SQL support, not the basic APIs.
 These modules should attempt to make a good range of capabilities
 available to the D programmer, but they not have to be all encompassing.
 Those users who want to do really fancy things can drop back to the
 low-level interface. They should probably have the following capabilities:

 1) Establishing and closing database connections.
Sounds good. Since DB connections are a precious resource, there must be a RAII struct holding them. The functions below may be members of it.
 2) The capability to execute literal SQL statements - execSQL()
 if you like. Some of these will generate result sets, of which more below.
Great.
 3) The capability to create prepared statements with in and out
 parameters and association of the parameters with a source, and
 then to execute these. This breaks down into several components/
 capabilities, which could be labeled:

 3a) createPreparedStatement() - marshal parameters, associate them
 with a sourceand have the server prepare the statement.

 3b) execStatement() - for those SQL statements that don't have a
 result set.

 3c) execStatementIncremental()/getNext() - execute the prepared statement,
 then fetch the result rows one at a time into some kind of result set.
Here's where the range interface might be used. We might simply have execStatement() that returns an input range. If the statement produced no rows, the range will be empty. No need for distinguishing execStatement() and execStatementIncremental().
 3d) execStatementAll() - execute the prepared statement and get all
 the resulting rows into some kind of result set.
This is not a primitive, but instead a convenience function that should be used with caution and only for queries known to be small. I agree that it's good to have.
 3e) (maybe) execScalar() - do the whole sequence prepare, execute,
 and get a single value result set placed into a D variable.
That's convenient for e.g. "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM table WHERE condition", which people run all the time.
 3f) (maybe) execStoredProcedure() - another 'do the whole thing'
 capability TBD.
Well wouldn't that just execute a special SQL a la "CALL procedure"?
 It is when we come to the nature of the result sets that there is
 likely to be dissent. I favor arrays of structs, but we should
 probably do arrays of arrays of variants too for those situations
 where structures can't be sorted out at compile time. There needs
 to be some symmetry between what is used here, and what can be used
 as input to operations such as a prepared insert. It is of course
 vital that this part of each middle layer produce exactly the same
 kind of results. Otherwise the top layer could become difficult.
I'd like arrays of structs too but we must acknowledge that most databases people use will be large, in which case loading the whole thing eagerly takes a lot of RAM and potentially wastes time. So arrays are out except for e.g. convenience functions - but then we already have array() that converts an arbitrary input range into an array. Now, regarding the "structs" part, I'd like that too when the schema is statically known. Two issues: 1. MFC had at a point a wizard that generated one struct per resultset. It was an absolute maintenance disaster and they recanted by offering dynamically-bound result sets. The lesson there is that defining a struct for each query won't likely play out, so we better use Tuple!(ColType1, ColType2, ...). A possible API would be: auto db = std.database.connect("cdb.mysql"); auto rows = db.sql!(double, ulong) ("SELECT SUM(x), COUNT(x) FROM table"); // We know that rows is a range of Tuple!(double, ulong). writeln("Sum is ", rows.front[0], " count is ", rows.front[1]); Cool beans. I'd love to use such an API! 2. Statically-bound tuples work only when we know the query beforehand. We need to cater for resultsets of unknown column count and types. The question here is whether we traffic in untyped memory a la ubyte[] or some variant type. I favor Variant because it's efficient, accommodates any SQL type easily, and is convenient to use.
 On top of this set of two modules for each database, I envisage a
 higher-level module - etc.dbops - that provides a bunch of convenience
 templates for various common database operations, spanning the databases.
 Once the middle layer is in place, this top layer should be relatively
 easy to implement. It should be noted though that all these database
 wrappers will be monstrously difficult to test.

 I am at the point with MySQL where I can get the result of a plain
 old query into an array of a checked structure type. I have the
 prepared statement stuff, and know how the result will be created from
 a prepared query (the execStatementAll() case) - I just have to plow
 through a bit more binding and fetching.

 This is probably rather general and vague, but I would like to get
 comments so we can iterate toward a practical design.
Sounds good. What I'd suggest given the plethora of DB bindings already available is to form a sort of a "task force" and develop a shared vision towards a solid proposal. You may self-organize with community's help on this group and exchange ideas under e.g. the prefix "[std.database]" in the message titles. What I can say for sure is that there will be an std.database. Thanks for this initiative. Andrei
Oct 07 2011
next sibling parent reply Steve Teale <steve.teale britseyeview.com> writes:
Andrei,

The suggestion in your penultimate paragraph is what I'm trying to get started.

Maybe the answer to the problem with structs may lie somewhere in std.typecons
in
combination with the field discovery features supported by most databases. If we
can manufacture the struct to suit the circumstances, then we've cracked it! I'm
probably talking rubbish - Friday night, couple of beers.

I will attempt top start a new thread - [std.database] - your 10 cents worth?

Thanks
Steve
Oct 07 2011
parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
On 10/7/11 11:51 AM, Steve Teale wrote:
 Andrei,

 The suggestion in your penultimate paragraph is what I'm trying to get started.

 Maybe the answer to the problem with structs may lie somewhere in std.typecons
in
 combination with the field discovery features supported by most databases. If
we
 can manufacture the struct to suit the circumstances, then we've cracked it!
I'm
 probably talking rubbish - Friday night, couple of beers.
No can do. This is a hard wall. Structs must be defined during compilation. Database structure can be discovered at run time. What you can do, however, is that you pass a struct type to store a row in the resultset and at runtime the fields of the struct are matched dynamically with the fields in the rowset. That is doable and useful.
 I will attempt top start a new thread - [std.database] - your 10 cents worth?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmUZGdi7Ty4 Andrei
Oct 07 2011
parent Steve Teale <steve.teale britseyeview.com> writes:
Andrei,

I've actually already got that in a way. Before I attempt to populate fields
into
a struct, the struct is checked to see if it conforms to the field properties.

Steve
Oct 07 2011
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Piotr Szturmaj <bncrbme jadamspam.pl> writes:
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
 1. MFC had at a point a wizard that generated one struct per resultset.
 It was an absolute maintenance disaster and they recanted by offering
 dynamically-bound result sets. The lesson there is that defining a
 struct for each query won't likely play out, so we better use
 Tuple!(ColType1, ColType2, ...). A possible API would be:

 auto db = std.database.connect("cdb.mysql");
 auto rows = db.sql!(double, ulong)
 ("SELECT SUM(x), COUNT(x) FROM table");
 // We know that rows is a range of Tuple!(double, ulong).
 writeln("Sum is ", rows.front[0], " count is ", rows.front[1]);

 Cool beans. I'd love to use such an API!
 Andrei
Did you see http://pszturmaj.github.com/ddb/db.html ? It maps tuples, structs and arrays in similar manner.
Oct 07 2011
parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
On 10/7/11 12:02 PM, Piotr Szturmaj wrote:
 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
 1. MFC had at a point a wizard that generated one struct per resultset.
 It was an absolute maintenance disaster and they recanted by offering
 dynamically-bound result sets. The lesson there is that defining a
 struct for each query won't likely play out, so we better use
 Tuple!(ColType1, ColType2, ...). A possible API would be:

 auto db = std.database.connect("cdb.mysql");
 auto rows = db.sql!(double, ulong)
 ("SELECT SUM(x), COUNT(x) FROM table");
 // We know that rows is a range of Tuple!(double, ulong).
 writeln("Sum is ", rows.front[0], " count is ", rows.front[1]);

 Cool beans. I'd love to use such an API!
 Andrei
Did you see http://pszturmaj.github.com/ddb/db.html ? It maps tuples, structs and arrays in similar manner.
I did. Looks good. Why do you need DBRow? You could simply use Variant[], the given struct, or Tuple directly. Andrei
Oct 07 2011
next sibling parent reply Adam Ruppe <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
In my database.d, I used a database row struct to provide both
integer and key based indexes.
Oct 07 2011
parent reply Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org> writes:
On Oct 7, 2011, at 10:14 AM, Adam Ruppe wrote:

 In my database.d, I used a database row struct to provide both
 integer and key based indexes.
Funny=85 I have a ResultSet object which contains an array of Column = objects. Here's the basic idea: class ResultSet { static class Column { int index(); string name(); int size(); int length(); void[] data(); bool opEquals(NullValue); T as(T)(); // return raw if T matches underlying or call to!(T) = on field as appropriate } size_t numCols(); bool nextResultSet(); bool next(); bool prev(); bool first(); bool last(); void update(); // SQLSetPos(rowNumber=3D0) Column opIndex(size_t); // easy enough to add opIndex(string) } Does your Row equate to the ResultSet as above?=
Oct 07 2011
parent Adam Ruppe <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
Sean Kelly wote:
 Does your Row equate to the ResultSet above?
Fairly similar. Mine looks something like this: interface ResultSet { // name for associative array to result index int getFieldIndex(string field); string[] fieldNames(); bool empty(); Row front(); void popFront(); int length(); } struct Row { // the actual column is returned as a string - probably should // change that, but mysql, postgres, and sqlite all offered that // and it works for me, so I went with it string opIndex(size_t idx) {} string opIndex(string columnName) {} int opApply(...) {} private string[] data; } Then, each of the database implementations use that little ResultSet interface to feed Row structs back to the user code.
Oct 07 2011
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Steve Teale <steve.teale britseyeview.com> writes:
Andrei,

So if I'm understanding you correctly, if structs are used, and there's a
database
change, then the app has to be rebuilt. If Variants, then only the app's config
file has to be updated (or the app can look in the database to get such
information) - have I got this right?

Steve
Oct 07 2011
next sibling parent Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org> writes:
On Oct 7, 2011, at 11:27 AM, Steve Teale wrote:

 Andrei,
=20
 So if I'm understanding you correctly, if structs are used, and =
there's a database
 change, then the app has to be rebuilt. If Variants, then only the =
app's config
 file has to be updated (or the app can look in the database to get =
such
 information) - have I got this right?
I'd say yes, though qualify this by saying that a properly designed app = will target only views and stored procedures, which insulate the app = from schema changes.=
Oct 07 2011
prev sibling parent Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
On 10/7/11 1:27 PM, Steve Teale wrote:
 Andrei,

 So if I'm understanding you correctly, if structs are used, and there's a
database
 change, then the app has to be rebuilt.
Yes. Touched to update the structs and rebuilt.
 If Variants, then only the app's config
 file has to be updated (or the app can look in the database to get such
 information) - have I got this right?
Yah. The exact behavior depends on the assumption the app makes about the resultset. Consider: auto result = db.sql(queryString); enforce(result.front[0].type == typeid(double)); ... In this case you'd pretty much need to touch the code if the queryString returns something else than a double in the first column. Andrei
Oct 07 2011
prev sibling parent reply Piotr Szturmaj <bncrbme jadamspam.pl> writes:
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
 On 10/7/11 12:02 PM, Piotr Szturmaj wrote:
 Did you see http://pszturmaj.github.com/ddb/db.html ? It maps tuples,
 structs and arrays in similar manner.
I did. Looks good. Why do you need DBRow? You could simply use Variant[], the given struct, or Tuple directly.
Sure, that's a good idea. I used DBRow because I wanted generic set/setNull for any of its base types, but it could be done with function templates anyway... The only thing that makes DBRow useful is opIndex access to Variant[] fields, like row["field"].
Oct 07 2011
parent Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
On 10/07/11 15:00, Piotr Szturmaj wrote:
 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
 On 10/7/11 12:02 PM, Piotr Szturmaj wrote:
 Did you see http://pszturmaj.github.com/ddb/db.html ? It maps tuples,
 structs and arrays in similar manner.
I did. Looks good. Why do you need DBRow? You could simply use Variant[], the given struct, or Tuple directly.
Sure, that's a good idea. I used DBRow because I wanted generic set/setNull for any of its base types, but it could be done with function templates anyway... The only thing that makes DBRow useful is opIndex access to Variant[] fields, like row["field"].
Oh that makes sense, thanks. Andrei
Oct 07 2011
prev sibling parent Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org> writes:
On Oct 7, 2011, at 8:46 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 On 10/7/11 9:11 AM, Steve Teale wrote:
 I'm thinking that for each database that gets covered there will
 need to be two modules, like:
=20
 etc.c.mysql
 etc.mysqld
=20
 The etc.c.xxx modules would be completely different between databases =
-
 just translations of the necessary header files. The xxxd modules
 would be as similar as possible consistent with allowing the strong
 points of individual database systems to show through, and the weak
 points of others to be avoided. I don't think all should be reduced
 to some LCD.
=20 Well we may be hasty to go that way. The driver-based approach works =
well for other languages and APIs - why wouldn't it work for us? The = differences across different DBMSs would be mostly in the SQL support, = not the basic APIs. It may be worth targeting ODBC early on as well, since that would get = the API working for pretty much everything. Then targeting a = DBMS-specific API would be an optimization step rather than a necessary = one.
 These modules should attempt to make a good range of capabilities
 available to the D programmer, but they not have to be all =
encompassing.
 Those users who want to do really fancy things can drop back to the
 low-level interface. They should probably have the following =
capabilities:
=20
 1) Establishing and closing database connections.
=20 Sounds good. Since DB connections are a precious resource, there must =
be a RAII struct holding them. The functions below may be members of it. The way I've done this before is via reference counting, since the = connection handle often has to be held by all related statements, = resultsets, etc. Would scope(exit) be sufficient to provide RAII = functionality here?
 3) The capability to create prepared statements with in and out
 parameters and association of the parameters with a source, and
 then to execute these. This breaks down into several components/
 capabilities, which could be labeled:
=20
 3a) createPreparedStatement() - marshal parameters, associate them
 with a sourceand have the server prepare the statement.
=20
 3b) execStatement() - for those SQL statements that don't have a
 result set.
=20
 3c) execStatementIncremental()/getNext() - execute the prepared =
statement,
 then fetch the result rows one at a time into some kind of result =
set.
=20
 Here's where the range interface might be used. We might simply have =
execStatement() that returns an input range. If the statement produced = no rows, the range will be empty. No need for distinguishing = execStatement() and execStatementIncremental(). Absolutely, though things may be a bit tricky here. It's possible for a = SQL query to return multiple resultsets, each of which is ideally = represented by a range.
 3d) execStatementAll() - execute the prepared statement and get all
 the resulting rows into some kind of result set.
=20 This is not a primitive, but instead a convenience function that =
should be used with caution and only for queries known to be small. I = agree that it's good to have.
=20
 3e) (maybe) execScalar() - do the whole sequence prepare, execute,
 and get a single value result set placed into a D variable.
=20 That's convenient for e.g. "SELECT COUNT(*) FROM table WHERE =
condition", which people run all the time.
=20
 3f) (maybe) execStoredProcedure() - another 'do the whole thing'
 capability TBD.
=20 Well wouldn't that just execute a special SQL a la "CALL procedure"?
A stored procedure can have a return value and multiple resultsets, I = believe. Certainly one or the other anyway. I think SPs are covered by = the other query methods, though perhaps someone can think of a QOI = feature that would benefit from a special call.
 It is when we come to the nature of the result sets that there is
 likely to be dissent. I favor arrays of structs, but we should
 probably do arrays of arrays of variants too for those situations
 where structures can't be sorted out at compile time. There needs
 to be some symmetry between what is used here, and what can be used
 as input to operations such as a prepared insert. It is of course
 vital that this part of each middle layer produce exactly the same
 kind of results. Otherwise the top layer could become difficult.
=20 I'd like arrays of structs too but we must acknowledge that most =
databases people use will be large, in which case loading the whole = thing eagerly takes a lot of RAM and potentially wastes time. So arrays = are out except for e.g. convenience functions - but then we already have = array() that converts an arbitrary input range into an array.
=20
 Now, regarding the "structs" part, I'd like that too when the schema =
is statically known. Two issues:
=20
 1. MFC had at a point a wizard that generated one struct per =
resultset. It was an absolute maintenance disaster and they recanted by = offering dynamically-bound result sets. The lesson there is that = defining a struct for each query won't likely play out, so we better use = Tuple!(ColType1, ColType2, ...). A possible API would be:
=20
 auto db =3D std.database.connect("cdb.mysql");
 auto rows =3D db.sql!(double, ulong)
    ("SELECT SUM(x), COUNT(x) FROM table");
 // We know that rows is a range of Tuple!(double, ulong).
 writeln("Sum is ", rows.front[0], " count is ", rows.front[1]);
=20
 Cool beans. I'd love to use such an API!
It's only necessary to statically specify the parameter types if static = checking of arguments is desired. Otherwise it can all work implicitly. = For example, here's how you'd call a SQL API I wrote, which works = against ODBC (it's a quick and dirty port of a C++ API I wrote in the = mid 90s=85 not really a candidate for standardization): auto conn =3D new Connection( "driver=3D{SQL Server};" "server=3D(local);" "trusted_connection=3Dno;" "database=3DMyDB;" "uid=3Dsa;" "pwd=3D;" ); //"network=3Ddbmssocn;" ); auto stmt =3D conn.prepare( "SELECT Name FROM Person WHERE = PersonID =3D ?" ); // the prepare statement learns the type of each parameter from = the SQL server stmt[0] =3D 1; // will throw if the wrong type is supplied auto rs =3D stmt.open(); printf( "%.*s\n----\n", rs[0].name ); while( rs.next() ) printf( "%.*s\n", rs[0].asUtf8 );
 2. Statically-bound tuples work only when we know the query =
beforehand. We need to cater for resultsets of unknown column count and = types. The question here is whether we traffic in untyped memory a la = ubyte[] or some variant type. I favor Variant because it's efficient, = accommodates any SQL type easily, and is convenient to use. Ideally, both should be available, though if one must be chosen then I = vote for Variant.=
Oct 07 2011
prev sibling parent Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:
On 2011-10-07 16:11, Steve Teale wrote:
 I'm thinking that for each database that gets covered there will
 need to be two modules, like:

 etc.c.mysql
 etc.mysqld

 The etc.c.xxx modules would be completely different between databases -
 just translations of the necessary header files. The xxxd modules
 would be as similar as possible consistent with allowing the strong
 points of individual database systems to show through, and the weak
 points of others to be avoided. I don't think all should be reduced
 to some LCD.

 These modules should attempt to make a good range of capabilities
 available to the D programmer, but they not have to be all encompassing.
 Those users who want to do really fancy things can drop back to the
 low-level interface. They should probably have the following capabilities:

 1) Establishing and closing database connections.

 2) The capability to execute literal SQL statements - execSQL()
 if you like. Some of these will generate result sets, of which more below.

 3) The capability to create prepared statements with in and out
 parameters and association of the parameters with a source, and
 then to execute these. This breaks down into several components/
 capabilities, which could be labeled:

 3a) createPreparedStatement() - marshal parameters, associate them
 with a sourceand have the server prepare the statement.

 3b) execStatement() - for those SQL statements that don't have a
 result set.

 3c) execStatementIncremental()/getNext() - execute the prepared statement,
 then fetch the result rows one at a time into some kind of result set.

 3d) execStatementAll() - execute the prepared statement and get all
 the resulting rows into some kind of result set.

 3e) (maybe) execScalar() - do the whole sequence prepare, execute,
 and get a single value result set placed into a D variable.

 3f) (maybe) execStoredProcedure() - another 'do the whole thing'
 capability TBD.

 It is when we come to the nature of the result sets that there is
 likely to be dissent. I favor arrays of structs, but we should
 probably do arrays of arrays of variants too for those situations
 where structures can't be sorted out at compile time. There needs
 to be some symmetry between what is used here, and what can be used
 as input to operations such as a prepared insert. It is of course
 vital that this part of each middle layer produce exactly the same
 kind of results. Otherwise the top layer could become difficult.

 On top of this set of two modules for each database, I envisage a
 higher-level module - etc.dbops - that provides a bunch of convenience
 templates for various common database operations, spanning the databases.
 Once the middle layer is in place, this top layer should be relatively
 easy to implement. It should be noted though that all these database
 wrappers will be monstrously difficult to test.

 I am at the point with MySQL where I can get the result of a plain
 old query into an array of a checked structure type. I have the
 prepared statement stuff, and know how the result will be created from
 a prepared query (the execStatementAll() case) - I just have to plow
 through a bit more binding and fetching.

 This is probably rather general and vague, but I would like to get
 comments so we can iterate toward a practical design.

 Thanks
 Steve
I don't know if this will be necessary to have a special function for but it would be nice to be able to get batches of results from a query. Or this might be solved by the range interface. -- /Jacob Carlborg
Oct 07 2011