gnome-db 0.2 is ready

[Michael Lausch <mla gams co at>]

It adds iodbc support and therefore another databse driver, the
postgres ODBC driver.

I was able to connect to a postgres database with this application.

Problems:

1) Gnome independency of the lower level stuff
   I don't think this is possible wihtout too much code
   duplication. The Driver Manager has to access a ini file which is
   in the infamous MS INI file syntax (same as the gnome ini
   files). Either write another parser or use the Gnome parser.
   This ini file shoudl also be editable with a gnome utility, the
   `gnodbc manager'. Therefore it's the best thing to keep the syntax
   of the odbc.ini file the same as the other gnome ini files.

1a) There eixts one function SQLBrowseConnect which opens dialog
    windows to gather missing parameters for a database access from the
    user. It would be nice if we could utilize this. The problem is that
    some of the functionality must even be provided by the real ODBC
    driver. the driver manager has not enough knowledge to know which
    parameter is needed by the driver to do the connect.

1b) The cursor value passing problem. A DB cursor can be a data sink or 
   a data source. In either situation it musr request that data is
   availebale or that the cursor is able to process further data. This
   can easily ve implemented using Gtk's signal mechanism. I don't see 
   a reason to reimplement signals or callbacks , only for the sake of
   being gnome dependent. KDE has it's own ODBC package anyway (C++
   based). 

2) Wrong SQL operations the query functions for DB metadata shoudl be
   done using standard ODBC functions, bnot the current wayt (it is ugly, 
   non correct and non portable).

3) Better layering. The current distribution of functionality between
   different source files and libraries is a mess. This will be
   tackled in the next release, so that it's easier to develop the GUI 
   part independent from the other part.

4) the login widget is a hack gnome-db-login.[ch].

5) The iodbc licence. iodbc is only GPL, but we need it to be LGPL (i
   think). I already wrote the owner of iodbc if he's willing to
   change the licence. If he isn't we have to re-implement iodbc. Not
   that this is hard, but tedious.
--
Michael Lausch/g.a.m.s. edv dienstleistungen gmbh
See my web page <http://www.gams.net/~mla> or query PGP key server for PGP key.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away".
                -- Philip K. Dick