Re: Announce: A pure-Tcl interface ... PgAccess

cmaj(at)freedomcorpse(dot)info wrote:
> ...
> > For more information see: http://gborg.postgresql.org/project/pgintcl/
> > The current release 1.3.9 is available for download.
>
> I'm just curious how you got to 1.3.9 without a public release...

By working on it for 4-1/2 years and bumping the version when anything
significant changed. It was being used "internally", but I didn't think
there was much was interest in it. When gborg.postgresql.org come along,
that seemed like a good place for it.

>...
> But in regards to the "README.PgAccess" file included in the pgintcl
> download and the "known issues" with PgAccess and pgin.tcl :
>
> 1. Loading - easy, like you said
> 2. Connecting - easy, except your code will break UDS and force TCP/IP
> 3. Import/Export - easy if you force the wizard when you decide to use
> pgin.tcl, as the wizard uses SELECT/INSERT vs. the old COPY
>
> Given that #2 and #3 would change behavior of PgAccess, I would
> recommend that the use of any patch for pgin.tcl be available as a
> command-line option. This way, users could specify whether they want to
> use libpgtcl or pgin.tcl, and we could code around it where necessary.

I planned to include a patch to PgAccess in with pgin.tcl. I don't think
applying the patch would break use of PgAccess with libpgtcl, because the
changes are compatible. For example, after COPY, I need a call to
pg_endcopy, but it can be made conditional on {[info procs pg_endcopy]!=""}.
Item #2 doesn't even need code changes; yes, it has to use TCP not UDS but
pgin.tcl does it automatically if you don't specify a hostname.

I wanted to include this patch with the first release of pgin.tcl, but I
got frustrated and gave up. I tried both pgaccess-0.98.8 and
0.98.8.20030117, with PostgreSQL-7.3.2, and I could not get them to
work (this is with libpgtcl, not my code). Some of the problems that
bit me in the first few minutes are on bugzilla.pgaccess.org, like:
Schema-qualified quoting problem (PgAccess bug #64),
Fails trying to access pg_shadow (PgAccess bug #91),
Hides PostgreSQL error messages (PgAccess bug #69).
There were others, which I didn't find in the bugzilla, but they could be
just side effects of other errors. Sorry, but I just decided to wait.
I'm looking forward to a PgAccess release that addresses some of the ~50
bug reports currently on bugzilla.pgaccess.com.