Embedded Database

Luther Baker

I just noticed this post: Re: I should use what provider? Heath Stewart 14:45 4 Jan '04 ... If you need a real RDBMS, look into the Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE) at http://www.microsoft.com/sql/msde/default.asp\[^\] ... I think this post answers my question. I do just want simplistic inserts and selects. Is there another angle? -Luther By the way, how does one post hrefs to this forum? try this

Luther Baker

What is MDAC? If I want to sell this checkbook application - can I guarantee user's will have MDAC installed, and consequently, the Jet database? If its small and redistributable, I don't mind bundling it - but I'm not sure Mr. John Doe is going to have ADO.NET installed (consequently MDAC and consequently JET) Is an MDAC installation the byproduct of a common application like IE or Office or something. Also - you've described the database, but I'm a neophyte when it comes to connecting to .NET dbases. I am extremely familiar with JDBC. Is there a similar C# API? ODBC wrappers? From your description, I don't even think I have to "start" the Jet Database, I just need to find the set of classes that transparently access JET to read and write mdb files. Is that conceptually correct? I'll google around. Someone's bound to have an example. At least now I have an idea what I am looking for. Thanks, -Luther

Heath Stewart

See http://www.microsoft.com/data[^]. MDAC is the Microsoft Data Access Components, which include ADO, OLE DB, and ODBC. OLE DB providers are the "database drivers" which ADO.NET uses. Microsoft Jet is indeed a separate download, but is pretty small. See the Downloads section of the page linked above (which redirects, actually). Without MDAC 2.6 or higher installed (MDAC 2.8 is the latest), you cannot use ADO.NET. The Microsoft Jet database engine installs the components necessary to use .mdb files. I'm not sure which one actually installs the Microsoft Jet OLE DB provider, but I'm betting it's the latter one. MDAC will most likely be on the system. Less likely is that Jet will also be installed. Unfortunately, the .NET Framework setup includes neither technology (:wtf:?). These aren't hard to package, though. The site I linked even discuss deployment.

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Heath Stewart

You don't need a "real" RDBMS for a simple register. Trust me - as someone that has built many installations and consulted both small and large companies on installations, MSDE is not something to be trivialized. Installing it the first time and attaching databases is difficult enough because you have to worry about SQL Server instances and which MSI to use. Maintaining that database through successive installations is a complete nightmare! For the app I designed at my company, we've had to write several utility programs just to update the MSDE installations and then upgrade database changes for both MSDE and SQL Server. Besides, this runs as a service and it can be hefty. It's too much burden on users' systems for something so simple. MSDE is better suided for data mining and analysis, web sites, and other concurrent-access applications. lutherbaker wrote: By the way, how does one post hrefs to this forum? try this As with all web pages, unless you use a relative path or root-relative (absolute) path (which cannot include the hostname), you must include http:// before the hostname. Examples:

Document-relative: somedir/file.html
Root-relative (absolute): /rootdir/somedir/file.html
Fully-qualified: _http://host.domain.tld/rootdir/somedir/file.html_

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Luther Baker

There's a whole slew of pertinent information there. Thanks! -Luther

Joel Lucsy

You might want to try SQLite. Look at http://www.sqlite.org and look for the WiKi pages. On there you'll find .NET libraries. I think it would be perfect for the kind of thing you're doing. -- Joel Lucsy

henningbenk

Perhaps you could just create a dataset with the tables needed and save/load this as an XML-File.

Luther Baker

Hi, As I mentioned in the original post, "I could resort to file based storage" ... If I could cap the total amout of data - or develop a scheme to incrementally load/search data that exceeded some memory limit. I'm just worried that such a solution will not scale well. Unless I'm reading the entire file into memory, I think this might be a bit slow and I would probably have to implement a searchable object hierarchy. While not the end of the world, thats just not where I want to focus my time right now. SELECT statements are just fine. I've looked at SQLlite (open source file/embedded dbase) and one day, I may implement a small, file dbase - but for now, runtime XML access/storage might not be feasible. I will try to encapsulate the data access anyway. It may make sense to use an XML solution for testing and prototype demonstrations. Thanks, -Luther

Luther Baker

Actually I have :) I would head that way if MS didn't already natively provide some alternative. I've browsed those docs and one day - I'd like to try my hand at doing something like that in C#. I wish there were more such simple/in-depth projects online. I can't peruse postgresql src without shutting down all communication with the outside world for 1~6 months ;) Thanks, -Luther

TuringTest1

Hey, this is a great thread. If someone were to do an article showing a simple database app in one or multiple flavors (xml, sqllite, jet) that would be a pretty useful article imho. !! :rose: ________________________________________ Gosh, it would be awful pleas'n, to reason out the reason, for things I can't explain. Then perhaps I'd deserve ya, and be even worthy of ya.. if I only had a brain!