Re: [boost] Re: Re: RTL status -"help wanted". Was: Library Proposal:database (boost::db)

From: Jeff Garland (jeff_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-10-16 13:06:17

On Sat, 16 Oct 2004 13:33:11 -0400, Arkadiy Vertleyb wrote

> RTL wasn't initialy, or ever, targeted at interfacing to databases.  
> What we tried to achieve was to add relational tables to C++, in the 
> same fashion STL adds vectors, sets, or maps.  Adding relational 
> tables assumes defining operations on them, which is relational 
> algebra.  So we do not provide the interface to real databases, but 
> OTOH, I don't know any other library around that would allow you to 
> perform join on an std::pair, functor, or a [smart] pointer.  RTL does.

Agree.

> Futhermore, this approach dictates compile-time record type generation.
> This follows more from the type-safety rather than from the performance
> perspective.
> 
> > No question. But since RTL doesn't provide an interface to a db
> currently...
> 
> Because we never meant to do this.  For better or for worse.

Sorry to be confused about the target -- I thought there was some discussion
of eventual rdb interfaces.  Still, even without the db I think it is very
interesting and useful work.  Combined with serialization it seems clear that
you can clearly create some elegant solutions to tricky problems without the
weight of a full database system.

That said, the level of interest is not as high as the interface to actual
RDB's -- because once you start using an actual RDB you want to defer the join
logic etc into the database engine itself and are mostly concerned with the
resulting data and mapping it to C++ types, etc...

Jeff