#Databases on CD-ROM
5 messages in this thread
Gary,
Funny you should ask about putting DBFs on CD-ROM — I just asked that question
in this forum last week! I got a pointer to a company called Nimbus and they
apparently have some kind of access engine. They are going to send me
something on it, but it hasn't yet arrived.
I haven't done any performance analysis on it, but I'm thinking that if you use
the FoxPro type of indexing, which as I understand reads the index into memory,
that you should be able to get fast results. I have a copy of CodeBase 5.0
which supports this type of indexing, but as I say I haven't set it up yet. I
wonder if you can compare floppy access and throughput to CD-ROM for testing…
— Samuel
Nimbus does have a cd-rom engine for sale. Cost is pretty high so it knocks
out smaller operators.
As far as testing goes, it doesn't cost that much to have a single copy made
for testing purposes. Of course a one off shop can do this cheaper than
Nimbus. Let me know if you want more info.
Jerry
I have also been searching for a CD-ROM database engine for Clipper. I have
been playing with an evaluation copy of Nimbus's ROMWARE. It requires you to
load a TSR database server which uses up about 120K. You also need to write a
few "C" functions to interface with the server. Your data is not stored on
the CD-ROM in DBF format. It is converted to Romwares database format. I like
the product as you can index each field as an entire field or using each word
to give you great word lists.
However you need to look very carefully at the memory requirements. We are at
present planning on using Romware. Memory requirements may force us to access
the Romware server using "C" or Pascal or any language not require as much as
clipper needs.
Let me know if you come across any other solutions or if you do go with
romware, I can give you the source for the "C" functions you call from clipper.
I would prefer to find a stand-alone clipper library utilizing RDD's and
Royalty free.
We currently produce one-offs and have found using dbase to be too slow for
most applications.
Michael,
Thanks for the info on RomWare. I'm supposed to get some info on it, but I
asked a couple of weeks ago and nothing has come yet so maybe they've lost my
address or something.
One thing you might want to look into is the CodeBase product by Sequiter. You
call it from C, but it can access Clipper database files. Of course it doesn't
have the word searching stuff built in, but it supports Clipper, dBASE, and Fox
file formats. There probably would be a way to roll your own word searching
capability with some programming.
— Samuel
Thanks for Info. If at all possible I want to keep away from C as most PC
programming expertise in our shop is in clipper. Keep me posted if you
discover any royalty free libraries for accessing CD-Rom. I will do the same.