[GRASS5] fwd: [Re: [SQLGRASS] Searching for GRASS 5.1 built-in DBMS]

[Andrea Aime]

Well,
I can confirm that PostgreSQL has referential integrity (Release 7.0).
For what I hear, 7.1 will support outer joins, bigger tuples and should
be faster than the previous release. Moreover, it can support spatial
data
and has R-tree indexing built in... Postgres is an excellent choice if
you
have a GIS that handles both spatial and tabular data, and in particular 
if they are related to each other (Ref. int.), but maybe it would make
a bit complicated to import/export data, since databases are composed of
several files placed in a standard directory (I may be wrong, but I
think
that all database should reside in /var/lib/pgsql/data, or another
folder
decided at install time). An export file should be composed of geometry
and
a dump of the table it references. At import time, table name could
conflict
with already existent tables... well, these are not big problems, but
it's
necessary to be aware of them. On the other side, an approach wich uses
only
file may be slow for what concerns thematic queryes (if attributes are
kept
in a file, how are they indexed for fast retrivial?)
Just opinions...
Bye
Andrea Aime

Markus Neteler wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> here an interesting forward from sqlgrasslist... We discuss the future
> DBMS for GRASS 5.1 there.
> 
> Markus
> 
>   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Subject: Re: [SQLGRASS] Searching for GRASS 5.1 built-in DBMS
> Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2001 20:42:56 +1100
> From: John Reid <jgreid at uow.edu.au>
> Reply-To: sqlgrass at geog.uni-hannover.de
> Organization: School of Geosciences
> To: sqlgrass at geog.uni-hannover.de
> References: <200007191556.SAA00202 at cc999683-a.wlgrv1.pa.home.com> <20010305192953.D15018 at hgeo02.geog.uni-hannover.de> <002101c0a5b5$3cc7bb00$9075c180 at godzilla>
> 
> Hi,
> 
> "Jeff D. Hamann" wrote:
> 
> > Markus:
> >
> > What about MySQL?  It's GPL and very stable. I'm not sure about other
> > opensource projects, but it's even got odbc and jdbc drivers. Runs great
> > under windows and the files are binary compatible between linux/win32.
> >
> > Jeff.
> 
> >From a recent question I asked on the postgresql list (regarding databases
> suitable for GIS):
>        <snip>
>        A definite No for 2 of the above.  MySQL was built to be
>        fast and light, with a minimal feature set.
>        <snip>
> 
> Further, probably the biggest problem with mySQL is that as far as I am aware
> there is no support for referential integrity.  I am fairly sure this is now
> implemented in pgsql 7.1.  I need to go back and play with it to make sure.
> 
> Currently I am getting involved in the fmaps project.  I think Franck has been
> persuaded to go modular, so I am currently investigating what it will take to
> implement a feature/metadata catalogue using the ISO draft standards for the
> design schema.  I was hoping that this module could also be used in the grass
> and ossim projects :-)
> 
> Conclusion that I have come to so far is that an ORDBMS would make life much
> simpler - possible to use ODMG support in python (http://4suite.org/index.epy
> - has pg and oracle drivers) instead?  Currently much of the object relational
> support in pgsql seems to be broken (apart from user defined base type
> extensions), and I don't know that C.J. Date would have approved of the method
> used for implementing abstract data type attributes in a tuple anyway (oid
> reference to separate table where all instances of ADT are stored) :-(  Then
> again, I have just skimmed the surface so far, so hopefully I am very wrong
> ;-)
> 
> cheers,
> John
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> john reid                                  e-mail john_reid at uow.edu.au
> technical officer                                room G02, building 41
> school of geosciences                           phone +61 02 4221 3963
> university of wollongong                          fax +61 02 4221 4250
> 
> uproot your questions from their ground and the dangling roots will be
> seen.  more questions!
>                                                        -mentat zensufi
> 
> apply standard disclaimers as desired...
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
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