[sf-perl] Code Question

[Brian Hamlin]

On Jun 27, 2007, at 4:52 PM, David Fetter wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 27, 2007 at 04:04:08PM -0700, Brian Hamlin wrote:
>> Hello Perl Veterans
>>
>> I have a question about DBI, Files and some XML. Useful References
>> appreciated.
>
> Brian,
>
> I don't mean offense here, but it appears from your description that
> you are trying to use an SQL database as a dumb data store,
> reinventing many wheels along the way.

!!!

>
> DBMSs are subtle and quick to anger, and when they get upset, they
> take their vengeance, both sooner and later.  Rather than picking a
> fight with your software, consider rethinking this approach and
> instead using the features of one or other DBMS so it does a lot of
> the work for you.
>
> You can probably figure out which DBMS I'll suggest ;)
>
I see where this is going! but while reading, I though you were going 
to tell me that I didn't actually need a DBMS for this level of problem 
at all. So, yes, I am almost completely unburdened with experience here 
;-)

   will check these out..

> A few URLs to ponder on tree structures in databases:
>
> http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/postgres/gist/ltree/
> http://developer.postgresql.org/cvsweb.cgi/pgsql/contrib/tablefunc/
> http://threebit.net/tutorials/nestedset/tutorial1.html
> http://www.sitepoint.com/print/hierarchical-data-database
> http://www.fuzzy.cz/databaze/index-en.php
> http://www.grzm.com/fornow/archives/2004/07/10/static_hierarchies
> http://mrnaz.com/static/articles/trees_in_sql_tutorial/index.php
> http://www.mrnaz.com/static/articles/trees_in_sql_tutorial/
>
> On XML in particular:
>
> http://developer.postgresql.org/cvsweb.cgi/pgsql/contrib/xml2/
> http://developer.postgresql.org/index.php/XML_Support
> http://gborg.postgresql.org/project/xpsql/projdisplay.php
>
> History and features which will be in the upcoming PostgreSQL 8.3:
>
> http://www.pgcon.org/2007/schedule/events/14.en.html
>
> Cheers,
> David.
>
>> I wrote a functional DBI program that just reads data on request,
>> invoked as a cgi, for light weight use. That works fine. The data is
>> returned as an XML structure that I write out manually using print.
>>
>> Now, I want to do something more elaborate-
>>
>> * read data from an external source (thats working, its a Salesforce
>> SOAP query)
>>     comes back as XML, I use Soap::Lite
>> * Geocode the addresses in the table, add the results to the XML
>> structure
>>      thats working already in an individual script, LWP get
>> * take a list of numbers in one field and make a separate "many to
>> many" table out of them
>> * take the rest of the data and make a table out of it
>>      meaning, write SQL statements manually I suppose. I have that
>> working in individual scripts
>>      a lot of things I have looked at look like more work to get 
>> started
>> that it is to do this by hand
>>      I have an idiom someone showed me, which works, using a local 
>> array
>> with Field Names as a template
>>        to write the SQL statements
>> * EXPORT the previous data via DBI and write it to a time-stamped text
>> file
>>      eg MerchTBl_26Jun07.sql/xml/whatever
>> * REPLACE the contents of the table completely with the fresh data
>>      the client is not going to pay for a custom system, I am only so
>> good at this so far
>>
>> Each step is doable, especially since I have already solved many of 
>> the
>> unusual cases
>> manually once. It is really the rote, ordinary things that are new to
>> me, and of course, general
>> good practices, etc. I dont have the DBI cookbook
>>
>> Code samples etc apropos to this are appreciated. I do read newsgroups
>> and books etc, but since
>> Perl has been around for a while, the volume of such things is very
>> large, and for someone getting
>> their footing its hard to wade through. Hence the question to the 
>> list.
>>
>> thanks in advance
>>     -Brian
>>
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>
> -- 
> David Fetter <david at fetter.org> http://fetter.org/
> phone: +1 415 235 3778        AIM: dfetter666
>                               Skype: davidfetter
>
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