[PHP-DB] RE: MS SQL 7 & Oracle8i From: Nold, Mark (Mark.Nold <email protected>)
Date: 08/15/00

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------
Disclaimer: The information contained in this email is intended only for the
use of the person(s) to whom it is addressed and may be confidential or
contain legally privileged information. If you are not the intended
recipient you are hereby notified that any perusal, use, distribution,
copying or disclosure is strictly prohibited. If you have received this
email in error please immediately advise us by return email at
postmaster <email protected> and delete the email document without making a
copy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------
Its true PHP has DB specific calls for DB access.

What you need to do is use a DB abstraction layer. The most popular one is
PHPlib (phplib.netuse.de) and another is metabase (not sure of the url)

I would also investigate the provider layer for PEAR (this will comes with
the src files of PHP) this is new but its an "official" php product so may
well be worth looking into.

I used PHPlib for some time to develop on Access DB's on Windows then
transfer to a Sun box with Oracle so PHPLib shouldnt be a problem. Where you
may have a problem is the different SQL dialects. (I ended up writing an
ANSI SQL to Access function that was called when i was on the Windows
machine). Im not sure how different SQL Server is but if the same SQL is
working now you shouldn't have a problem.

The goal of sharing the same code base is definatly possible (once you have
the DB abstraction layer in place)

The only downside i saw to PHPlib was that it didnt seem to support multiple
DB's in one page. For example you may wish to have your Oracle DB supplying
all the important info in a page but you may have a MySQL DB serving up the
navigation information. Things may have changed since i lasted used it in
PHP3.

Good luck,

mn

-----Original Message-----
From: Art Zemon [mailto:art <email protected>]
Sent: Monday, August 14, 2000 3:44 AM
To: php-db <email protected>
Subject: MS SQL 7 & Oracle8i

Hello,

We have a large application (about 400 scripts and custom tags)
written in ColdFusion that runs on both Microsoft SQL Server 7
and Oracle8i. We use ODBC to access both and have virtually no
database dependencies in our code.

I have heard that PHP does not do as good a job of hiding the
database as CF does. Is that true in this case? Will we have
difficulty in converting our application from ColdFusion to PHP
and retaining a single code base for both database systems?

Thanks,
    -- Art Z. 

--
**
**  Art Zemon, Vice President
**  Pigasus Software, Inc. - Solutions that *Solve* Problems(sm)
**  Interlibrary Loan & Document Delivery Systems
**  http://www.pigasus.com/
**  Voice: (636) 447-3030 or toll free (877) PIGS-FLY
**  Fax: (636) 447-3232
**