Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Tue, 25 Feb 2003 14:09:22 -0500
From:      Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialtech.com>
To:        Trent Nelson <trent@limekiln.vcisp.net>
Cc:        Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org>, "Philip M. Gollucci" <philip@p6m7g8.com>, synrat <synrat@wirewalk.org>, questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Oracle on FreeBSD
Message-ID:  <3E5BBF62.2070607@potentialtech.com>
References:  <1046128729.490.8.camel@dethstar> <Pine.LNX.4.50.0302242257420.21216-100000@mail.wirewalk.com> <200302242321.04463.philip@p6m7g8.com> <20030225091453.GB70361@limekiln.vcisp.net> <15963.38404.257921.610622@guru.mired.org> <20030225184430.GA73776@limekiln.vcisp.net>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Trent Nelson wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 25, 2003 at 10:12:52AM -0600, Mike Meyer wrote:
> 
>>In <20030225091453.GB70361@limekiln.vcisp.net>, Trent Nelson <trent@limekiln.vcisp.net> typed:
>>
>>>    I'm interested in seeing how well something like PostgreSQL can be
>>>    used as a ``drop-in'' replacement for Oracle.  If I have clients 
>>>    connecting via ODBC (Rational ClearQuest), I personally couldn't
>>>    care what the underlying database is.  Now *that* is something I'd
>>>    be interested in seeing a write up for.
>>
>>It's not a drop-in replacement. You have to install the PostgreSQL
>>ODBC drivers on all the clients. Any client-side scripts will have to
>>be changed to use a PostgreSQL wrappers instead of Oracle
>>wrappers. The SQL is probably subtly different as well.
>>
>>SQL may be a standard, but you still get locked into the databases
>>that you can query with it.
> 
>     Perhaps I should have been more specific.  I'm interested in how far
>     you can get (i.e. what queries will work, what ones won't) before
>     you reach a complete road-block.  With regards to ODBC, changing the
>     driver being used by the application's '*odbc.ini' configuration fi-
>     le is sufficient for modifying the database being interfaced to, is
>     it not?  i.e. the application simply calls standard ODBC functions
>     which the individual database drivers implement.

It depends on how the application is written.
One of the "standard ODBC functions" available is an SQL passthru, which
basically lets the application talk directly to the SQL server it the SQL
server's native dialect of SQL.  If the application uses this ability, it
probably won't work at all.
Additionally, there are different levels of ODBC compatibility, if your
application requires a certain level, and the PostgreSQL ODBC driver
doesn't support it, you're out of luck again.

Not to say that there isn't a possibility that it will work, just that
it's not a terribly simple question to answer.

The whole "ODBC compatiblity" thing is (unfortunately) a lie.  Nobody has
stood up and constrained the standard enought to make it truely compatible
across all databases.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com


To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?3E5BBF62.2070607>