========================================================= DBD::DtfSQLmac Version 0.1201 for MacPerl 5.004 ========================================================= Thuesday, March 13, 2001 Dear MacPerl Users, this is the DBD::DtfSQLmac 0.1201 module with a shared PPC library compiled for MacPerl 5.004. The shared library provided will only run on PowerPC Macs and with the PPC or Fat versions of MacPerl. It was compiled with MPW's MrC (PPC). Please let me know of any problems you might encounter. You can download the module and the readme from my website via http://usemacperl.webjump.com/dbi.html or from my CPAN directory $CPAN/authors/id/T/TW/TWEGNER/ *NAME ====== DBD::DtfSQLmac - A DBI driver for the dtF/SQL 2.01 database engine, Macintosh edition *REQUIRES ========== MacPerl 5.004 (not 5.6.x) DBI 1.08 (Mac build) Mac::DtfSQL 0.1201 (part of the distribution) *DESCRIPTION ============= DBD::DtfSQLmac is a DBI driver for the dtF/SQL 2.01 database engine, Macintosh edition. dtF/SQL is a relational database engine for MacOS, Windows 95/NT, and several Unix platforms from sLAB Banzhaf & Soltau oHG (http://www.slab.de/), Boeblingen, Germany. The dtF/SQL database engine implements an impressive set of ANSI SQL-92 functionality. It is designed as an embedded database for product developers. Best of all, it's free for non-commercial use. The state of free (or nearly free) relational databases on the Macintosh running classic Mac OS isn't great, thus dtF/SQL is a remarkable exception. Because of the lack of free relational databases, the number of Perl DBD drivers usable for the Macintosh is limited. This module should help to alleviate the situation, as it is one of the very few useable DBDs for a true database engine on the Mac. DBD::DtfSQLmac, a pure Perl driver, could not be used stand-alone. It could only be used in conjunction with the Mac::DtfSQL module (part of the distribution), which is the Perl interface to the dtF/SQL database engine. While the Mac::DtfSQL extension module does all the dirty work talking to the dtF/SQL C API, the DBD::DtfSQLmac module offers the standard Perl DBI API to relational databases. This module should run on a PowerPC Macintosh with MacOS 7.x/8.x/9.x right out of the box. Unfortunately, users of a 68K Mac are a bit out of luck, because I cannot provide a pre-build version of the Mac::DtfSQL extension module for them. One will need a Metrowerks Codewarrior compiler and linker to build a version for CFM 68K Macs (see the Mac::DtfSQL module documentation for more information). *INSTALLATION ============== Installation is quite easy. First, install the Mac build of the DBI 1.08 module, available from the MacPerl Module Porters Page at http://pudge.net/mmp/. As with every module, use Chris Nandor's installme.plx droplet for installation. This installer is part of the cpan-mac-0.50 module, available from CPAN http://www.perl.com/CPAN-local/authors/id/CNANDOR/ or via Chris Nandor's MacPerl page http://pudge.net/macperl/. After you've installed the DBI module, simply drop the DBD-DtfSQLmac-0.1201.tar.gz packed archive or the unpacked folder DBD-DtfSQLmac-0.1201 on the installme.plx droplet. Answer the upcoming question "Convert all text and MacBinary files?" with "Yes". This should install the module properly. To be sure, run the test.pl script first, to see if the module loads. Then run the test scripts located in the 't' folder. Some samples are provided in the 'samples' folder, to help you getting started. Important note: This module can only be used in conjunction with the Mac::DtfSQL module, which is part of this distribution. If you use the pre-build version of the Mac::DtfSQL module or you've built the Mac::DtfSQL module as a shared library that depends on the dtF/SQL 2.01 shared library 'dtFPPCSV2.8K.shlb', then this module needs to know where the dtF/SQL 2.01 shared library is located on your harddisk. Either put the dtF/SQL 2.01 shared library 'dtFPPCSV2.8K.shlb' (or at least an alias to it) in the *same* folder as the shared library 'DtfSQL' built from the extension module (the folder is ':site_perl :MacPPC:auto:Mac:DtfSQL:) or put the dtF/SQL 2.01 shared library in the *system extensions* folder. *HOW TO GET dtF/SQL 2.01 ========================= Please note that dtF/SQL 2.01 is freely available only for non-commercial use. See sLAB's License Agreement for details. Downloading dtF/SQL version 2.01 requires registration. Visit sLAB's web site at http://www.slab.de/us/home/, go to the download section and register yourself (your name and email-address are sufficient). Within a few minutes, you will get a user name and password via email. Now, visit their web site again, go straight to the download section, choose 'Non-public Download', wait for the file list to come and choose dtF/SQL 2.01 for MacOS dtFmac-201.sit Size: 3395 kByte Date: 09/14/2000 . Then choose "License agreement for non-commercial users", read and agree to the upcoming License Agreement to actually download the file. There are older versions of dtF/SQL available, and some don't require registration. However, this module was written for version 2.01 and will *not* work with older versions of dtF/SQL. With the 2.0 release of the dtF/SQL database engine, its API has been revamped. Within the downloaded package, you will find the shared library (PPC only) needed for this module, as well as the static PPC and 68K libraries, the documentation, a tool for administrating a dtF/SQL database (PPC only), the dtF/SQL database server (PPC only), sample source code (in C and C++) and other useful stuff. Please note that this module is useless without the dtF/SQL shared library, as you might guess. *KNOWN BUGS ============ No known bugs. Please report bugs to the author. *COPYRIGHT =========== Copyright (c) 2000-2001 Thomas Wegner. All rights reserved. This program is free software. You may redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Artistic License, distributed with Perl. Have fun. -- Thomas Wegner toms_email@gmx.de, TWEGNER@cpan.org