Hi all!
I've been reading through the requested features for the new client on
the wiki here:
http://drizzle.org/wiki/Proposed_Client_Features
http://drizzle.org/wiki/Client/Boots_API_Design_Concept
I think all the stuff on that link is excellent so far. I'd also like
to request a feature that I think will be a really cool timesaver for
DBAs and developers using Drizzle.
Macro Support.
Remember, "way back when" you used Microsoft Excel and were able to
start recording your actions, then when you stopped recording, Excel
would store a "macro" of your actions that you could subsequently replay?
I think this would be incredibly useful for folks who do repetitive work
in the console.
Sure, I know, I know...the first reaction folks will say is "but HEY,
you guys removed stored procedures!". Yeah, yeah... but the feature I'm
proposing here is different from stored procedures in the following ways:
1) It's entirely client-side. There is no server-side storage/cache,
processing, parsing, or anything.
2) It's not limited to the small subset of SQL that stored procedures
(at least in MySQL) are currently limited to. Anything the new client
can do would be able to go into a macro.
3) Since the client is in Python, the macros are themselves re-writable
in a scripting language. This gives the recorded macros incredible
flexibility.
4) No fussing and mussing around with SQL stored procedure permissions
at runtime (you know, the silly INVOKER/DEFINER crap)
5) Ability to interact with result sets in the macro. Just try doing
that easily in a SQL stored procedure. Using CURSORs is incredibly
clunk and ugly. Applying a Python function or closure/lambda on each of
a result set is elegant and easy.
Imagine the following rough example interface...
drizzle> RECORD MACRO "sales_report_with_email" (to_email);
macro recording started.
drizzle> mode python;
in python mode.
python> import datetime
python> today= datetime.datetime.now().isoformat()
python> filename= python("%s-%s-%s" % ("sales", to_email, today));
python> Ctrl-D
drizzle> SELECT * FROM sales
WHERE manager = @to_email; > csv(@filename);
drizzle> mode python;
In python mode.
python> report_txt= open(filename, "r+b").read()
python> import smtplib
python> mailserver = smtplib.SMTP('localhost')
python> mailserver.sendmail('[email protected]', to_email, report_txt)
python> mailserver.quit()
python> print "Mail sent to %s\n" % to_email
python> Ctrl-D
drizzle> STOP MACRO;
Macro "sales_report_with_email" saved.
drizzle> macro("sales_report_with_email", "[email protected]");
Mail sent to [email protected]
---
Pretty powerful, eh?
If you follow the flow above, you will notice the only real trick to
solve is passing the macro's arguments into the console's variable
array, and from the console's variable array into the Python
interpreter's variable scope. But this is a fairly simple problem to
solve...
Thoughts?
Jay
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