Re: [boost] SOCI 3.0.0 - The Database Access Library

From: Phil Endecott (spam_from_boost_dev_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-07-10 20:34:31

Maciej Sobczak wrote:
> Phil Endecott wrote:
>
>> Congratulations on the new release.  I've had a quick look, and as far 
>> as I can see it still always uses passes query arguments, even in 
>> prepared statements, as text strings.  In my code, I have enjoyed the 
>> increased type safety and small performance improvement from passing 
>> them in binary.
>
> It depends on the given backend, but binary format is most natural in SOCI.

Great!

> PostgreSQL always uses text transmission of query arguments, and they 
> are also passed separately from the query.

Not great :-(

> I was meditating on the 
> binary data transmission, but the interface is basically ill-designed 
> and even PostgreSQL folks recommended the use of text format for 
> portability (details: with PostgreSQL the binary format has to comply 
> with *server* conventions not the client's and you never know what they 
> are).

Hmm.  I was under the impression that ints were always sent in network 
byte order (i.e. big endian), and I think I would have noticed if I'd 
got it wrong because I've only ever used it on little-endian systems.  
Is there some other convention that you're thinking of?  It took me a 
while to get date/time types right I suppose.

Anyway, as I noted above, the benefit that I have mentally associated 
with passing query arguments as strings but now see from your design 
need not be dependent on it, is explicit typing.  When I declare 
statements I indicate the types of the arguments; when I execute the 
statements the compiler checks that I'm supplying values of the right types.

IMHO you should go ahead and submit SOCI for a Boost review.  Then we 
can spend weeks discussing the relative merits of all the different 
design choices....

Phil.