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Which is the best choice?


2005-06-23 09:39:53 PM
cppbuilder61
I'm going to start building a program (in C++Builder6) to help catalog a
music collection, namely just the artists and titles, not mp3's. I could use
some advice on how best to implement the storage medium. I think a database
would be the best, but I don't have much experience with them. I'll need one
that can be easily installed on any Windows machine and has good search
capabilities.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Jeff
 
 

Re:Which is the best choice?

Jeff wrote:
Quote
Any thoughts?
One thought:When exporting make sure export as XML is available. For
the last couple of months I've finally had to get to grips with XML and
I now realise why it's so handy. In the case of a music library XML
support would be a step toward making that library available as a UPnP
music server since that uses XML as the transport protocol.
As for the backend you could try playing with MS Access. It's cheap and
cheerful and seems to work well.
--
Andrue Cope [TeamB]
[Bicester, Uk]
info.borland.com/newsgroups/guide.html
 

Re:Which is the best choice?

noooooooo
It's horrible and slow - please don't use Access.
There are so many databases out there and some are in-memory and tie in with
Borland's Db controls. Admitedly I don't use them but lots of other people
do.
Rgds Pete
"Andrue Cope [TeamB]" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote in message
Quote
Jeff wrote:

>Any thoughts?

One thought:When exporting make sure export as XML is available. For
the last couple of months I've finally had to get to grips with XML and
I now realise why it's so handy. In the case of a music library XML
support would be a step toward making that library available as a UPnP
music server since that uses XML as the transport protocol.

As for the backend you could try playing with MS Access. It's cheap and
cheerful and seems to work well.

--
Andrue Cope [TeamB]
[Bicester, Uk]
info.borland.com/newsgroups/guide.html
 

{smallsort}

Re:Which is the best choice?

Quote
noooooooo
It's horrible and slow - please don't use Access.
Why not using MS Access & MDB format?
I'm not in love with MDB but I have found BCB+ADO+MDB
very useful for everyday needs. Music catalogue is peace of cake
for ADO+MDB.
I have some databases & tables in it with more than 400,000 records
per table, and queries on it (if indexes are setted properly) are pretty
fast. Some of my DB programs based on ADO+MDB works for
years eith no problems.
I have never *need* to switch to something else, really.
Finally I think that for music catalogue, ADO + MS ACCESS
100 times exceed the needs of the catalogue.
Quote
There are so many databases out there and some are in-memory
and tie in with Borland's Db controls. Admitedly I don't use them
but lots of other people do.
Yes, I know... To be honest BDE was a real *pane* for me because
of many problems with MS ACCESS. But when ADO was shipped
with BCB, that was my second birthday.
The third would be when I see some replacement for QReports.
That are my experiences... I have no experience with XML way of
storing data but I beleave that's the ultimate solution for a long
period.
--
Best regards,
Vladimir Stefanovic
 

Re:Which is the best choice?

Thanks for all the input, this is great. Do you know of any tutorials I
could look at? I'm not very familiar with databases in general.
P.S. What is ADO? What is MDB?
Thanks,
Jeff
"Vladimir Stefanovic" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote in message
Quote
>noooooooo
>It's horrible and slow - please don't use Access.

Why not using MS Access & MDB format?

I'm not in love with MDB but I have found BCB+ADO+MDB
very useful for everyday needs. Music catalogue is peace of cake
for ADO+MDB.

I have some databases & tables in it with more than 400,000 records
per table, and queries on it (if indexes are setted properly) are pretty
fast. Some of my DB programs based on ADO+MDB works for
years eith no problems.

I have never *need* to switch to something else, really.

Finally I think that for music catalogue, ADO + MS ACCESS
100 times exceed the needs of the catalogue.

>There are so many databases out there and some are in-memory
>and tie in with Borland's Db controls. Admitedly I don't use them
>but lots of other people do.

Yes, I know... To be honest BDE was a real *pane* for me because
of many problems with MS ACCESS. But when ADO was shipped
with BCB, that was my second birthday.

The third would be when I see some replacement for QReports.

That are my experiences... I have no experience with XML way of
storing data but I beleave that's the ultimate solution for a long
period.




--
Best regards,
Vladimir Stefanovic

 

Re:Which is the best choice?

Pete Fraser wrote:
Quote
It's horrible and slow - please don't use Access.
We've not had that experience. It doesn't scale too well but from our
experience it does a good job of being what it claims to be:Cheap,
cheerful and readily available. Basically a nice little database that
you can find on pretty much any Windows installation.
But of course YMMV - databases are funny things :)
--
Andrue Cope [TeamB]
[Bicester, Uk]
info.borland.com/newsgroups/guide.html
 

Re:Which is the best choice?

Vladimir Stefanovic wrote:
Quote
That are my experiences... I have no experience with XML way of
storing data but I beleave that's the ultimate solution for a long
period.
I'm not sure about storing as XML tbh. Right now the project I'm
working on is storing the data that way because we want to export it
that way and will be using XML for our APIs. I just decided that the
test data might as well be the testbed for our XML. I also haven't
chucked everything into one file. I have a hierarchical structure with
the nodes stored in individual XML files.
My original thought when I heard about XML years ago was 'how horribly
innefficient using ASCII to store data'. Having played with it a bit
though I've decided that's not a fair criticism (although UPnP comes in
for a lot of stick because of it).
I've begun to realize just how incredibly portable it is. I always used
to like CSV because /everyone/ knew how to read it. But CSV had it's
share of faults:No agreement on how to handle ','s and '"'s in data. No
column headings. Can't handle hierarchical data. Totally useless for
non-standard data.
XML seems to address all these issues and over the last month I've
begun to see it as 'Turbo charged CSV'. It's going to be interesting to
see how it fares as an API protocol. We'll be using it not just for
interprocess communication but also EXE<->DLL.
--
Andrue Cope [TeamB]
[Bicester, Uk]
info.borland.com/newsgroups/guide.html
 

Re:Which is the best choice?

Vladimir Stefanovic wrote:
Quote
>noooooooo
>It's horrible and slow - please don't use Access.

Why not using MS Access & MDB format?
Ah! I confess to being a bit of a database ignoramous and I had no idea
there was a choice in that matter. All I can say is that all our Access
database use MDB format..and I have no idea why :)
--
Andrue Cope [TeamB]
[Bicester, Uk]
info.borland.com/newsgroups/guide.html
 

Re:Which is the best choice?

Quote
Thanks for all the input, this is great. Do you know of any tutorials I
could look at? I'm not very familiar with databases in general.

P.S. What is ADO? What is MDB?
I'm afraid I cannot help you much. First I learned from books:
C++Builder Unleashed 1,3,4
... and finally
C++Builder 6 Developer's Guide
ADO is set of components (on your palette bar), like TADOTable,
TADOQuery, TADOConnection, which helps you to wire your
database (like MS ACCESS) to your program.
When I say MDB, I mean on the MS ACCESS DB file (*.mdb).
Alternatively to ADO, there is BDE with similar set of components,
but I do not recommend that way when ADO exists.
Try to Google arround, must be some articles...
--
Best regards,
Vladimir Stefanovic
 

Re:Which is the best choice?

Quote
[...] All I can say is that all our Access
database use MDB format..and I have no idea why :)
Because (if you are not going to develop a billing system
for a whole country, fow which ORACLE or at least
SQL Server is needed ;):
- All *.mdb tables, indices & relationshios are stord in
one file.
- If using ADO no pre-installation is required (like for BDE)
- ADO returns LIVE datasets which was difficult for BDE
- Easy to design the database
- All you need for *.mdb is inside BCB IDE.
- Wide range of SQL queries
- Fast enough (I don't need more)
- handles big files and big tables
- it's working!
- Easy to maintain through MS ACCESS
--
Best regards,
Vladimir Stefanovic
 

Re:Which is the best choice?

I'll look into using the ADO components with a single file MDB Access
database.
Thanks for everything.
"Vladimir Stefanovic" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote in message
Quote
>Thanks for all the input, this is great. Do you know of any tutorials I
>could look at? I'm not very familiar with databases in general.
>
>P.S. What is ADO? What is MDB?

I'm afraid I cannot help you much. First I learned from books:
C++Builder Unleashed 1,3,4
... and finally
C++Builder 6 Developer's Guide

ADO is set of components (on your palette bar), like TADOTable,
TADOQuery, TADOConnection, which helps you to wire your
database (like MS ACCESS) to your program.

When I say MDB, I mean on the MS ACCESS DB file (*.mdb).

Alternatively to ADO, there is BDE with similar set of components,
but I do not recommend that way when ADO exists.

Try to Google arround, must be some articles...



--
Best regards,
Vladimir Stefanovic


 

Re:Which is the best choice?

Vladimir Stefanovic wrote:
Quote
>[...] All I can say is that all our Access
>database use MDB format..and I have no idea why :)

Because
[snip good stuff]
I was actually referring to me not knowing why we as a development team
went that route :)
But good info anyway.
--
Andrue Cope [TeamB]
[Bicester, Uk]
info.borland.com/newsgroups/guide.html
 

Re:Which is the best choice?

"Jeff" < XXXX@XXXXX.COM >wrote in message
Quote
Thanks for all the input, this is great. Do you know of any tutorials I
could look at? I'm not very familiar with databases in general.

P.S. What is ADO? What is MDB?

I'll just add my (inept) .02 at this point. I had a *horrible* time getting
started with the simplest database programming. I wish someone had told me
the following for a quick jumpstart:
1) Design a table in "Database Desktop" (a tool bundled with CB6).
2) Make a form using the Database->Form Wizard (in the main menu of CB6).
By all means read the other documentation on databases in the Developer's
Guide, etc. But the above is what you need to get started with a form that
actually *does* something.
[Then, I suppose, you can graduate from BDE, which the above steps will
create, to ADO.]
 

Re:Which is the best choice?

Pete Fraser wrote:
Quote
noooooooo
It's horrible and slow - please don't use Access.
There are so many databases out there and some are in-memory and tie in with
Borland's Db controls. Admitedly I don't use them but lots of other people
do.
Rgds Pete
Care to state what the 'so many databases and in-memory databases' are? I need
both......
keith