DB abstraction layer: libdbi vs libgda

[Chris Shoemaker]

On Fri, Oct 27, 2006 at 11:31:37AM -0400, Phil Longstaff wrote:
> I'm starting to take a look at the data abstraction layer to be used.
> The two candidates are libdbi and libgda.  Here's what I have found so
> far:
> 
> SQLite: latest stable version is 3.3.8 (Oct 9/06)
> MySQL: latest stable version is 5.0.24a
> PostgreSQL: latest stable version is 8.1.5
> 
> DB abstraction layer maintained?
> libgda: latest stable release 1.2.3 (Oct 31/05).  They are preparing a
> 2.0 release (1.99.0 on the ftp site is dated Oct 18/06, 1.99.1 AKA
> 2.0Beta3 is dated Oct 26/06).
> Note that libgda *is* included in suse 10.0.  Hmmm, why is the version
> 1.3.91?
> 
> libdbi: latest release 0.8.1 (Nov 21/05).  Not much except spam on the
> libdbi-devel mailing list for 2006.  Some bugs were reported in Oct 2006
> and one of the people listed as an admin on the SourceForge project page
> added a comment to the bug in Oct 2006.
> Note that libdbi is *not* included in suse 10.0 i.e. the software
> management tool doesn't find it.
> 
> Support for SQLite 3?
> libgda: YES
> libdbi: NO (2.8.x)
> 
> Support for MySQL 5.0.x?
> libgda: YES
> libdbi: ?
> 
> Support for PostgreSQL 8.x?
> libgda: YES
> libdbi: ?
> 
> For MySQL and PostgreSQL, I couldn't see what versions were supported by
> libdbi.  The libgda web site (http://www.gnome-db.org/) does have a page
> with version info.
> 
> Based on the maintenance and availability status, I think libgda is the
> clear choice.  Since they are at beta3 already, the unstable branch
> would be better.

Phil,
        Here are some more reasons why I'd prefer libgda over libdbi:

1) libgda has better integration with glib.  E.g. uses GValue.  I
would eventually like to see further use of GValue in GnuCash.  

2) gnomedb has gtk+ widgets that are build on top of libgda.  These
may not be immediately useful for more than things like a connection
manager or login dialog, but down-the-line I could see them being
useful as presentation widgets.
 
> Note that gda also supports XML databases, so that for an interchange
> format, we *could* use it instead.  

AFAIK, this isn't true anymore.  But, I believe it could be made true
again if we really wanted it to.

-chris

> As another make-work project, gda
> could be used as an interface around ofx (or other format) input/output
> to provide a standardized API for data access.
> 
> Phil
> 
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